A municipal website RFP does more than tell prospective vendors what features your city or county needs. The requirements you include can determine who controls your website, how easily you can change providers, what your long-term costs look like, and whether your organization can meet its accessibility obligations.
Most government website RFPs cover familiar features such as calendars, news sections, search functionality, responsive design, and content management. Those requirements matter, but nearly every established website vendor can satisfy them.
The requirements that truly distinguish vendors concern ownership, portability, accessibility, data access, and exit terms.
Make Website Ownership a Requirement
Ownership should be one of your most important city website RFP requirements.
Your RFP should clearly state that the government owns its content and all custom code, themes, templates, configurations, and other work created under the contract. It should also address whether the underlying website can be maintained independently of the original vendor.
Consider requiring vendors to deliver a website built on recognized open-source software and provide the complete functioning codebase upon request.
The goal is simple: your municipality should own a working website—not merely an export of its content.
Require Hosting Freedom and Portability
Owning website files means little if they only function within a vendor’s proprietary hosting environment.
A strong government website RFP template should require the completed website to be portable. Your city or county should be able to host it internally or move it to another qualified hosting provider without rebuilding the site.
Require full administrative access and the ability to export the website’s database, files, and other necessary components.
These requirements provide valuable flexibility if your municipality changes vendors, hosting providers, or technology strategies in the future.
Define Data Export and Exit Terms
Every vendor relationship eventually changes or ends. Addressing that possibility during government website procurement is much easier than negotiating it after a contract has been terminated.
Ask each vendor to document exactly what happens when you leave.
Your RFP can require a complete export of content, media, and data in standard, non-proprietary formats, along with the website’s codebase and configuration. Vendors should also disclose transition fees and identify whether any content types are excluded from migration.
Ideally, your municipality should never have to pay simply to retrieve its own content and data.
Include Accessibility Requirements
Accessibility belongs at the center of municipal website procurement.
The supplied RFP guidance recommends requiring conformance with WCAG 2.1 Level AA, consistent with U.S. Department of Justice ADA Title II regulations, as well as requesting an accessibility conformance report.
Your requirements should also address what happens after launch.
Can municipal employees correct accessibility problems themselves? Can another qualified provider make those changes? Or must every remediation request go through the original vendor?
Accessibility deadlines and regulations can change, so municipalities should verify current federal requirements when publishing an RFP and have appropriate counsel review procurement language.
Request Training and Knowledge Transfer
A government website should empower staff rather than make routine updates dependent on a vendor.
Require sufficient training and documentation for employees to manage everyday content independently. Administrative credentials and documentation should belong to the municipality, and ongoing maintenance should be possible through other qualified professionals familiar with the underlying platform.
This reduces dependence on a single provider while protecting institutional knowledge.
Evaluate the True Cost of the Website
Do not compare proposals using development costs alone.
Require vendors to disclose one-time development expenses, hosting, subscriptions or licenses, support, renewal increases, and potential migration or termination fees.
Consider requesting projected costs across a 10-year period. A solution that initially appears inexpensive can become significantly more costly when recurring fees and exit expenses are considered.
Most importantly, make sure your evaluation criteria reward what your RFP says matters. Ownership and portability will not influence the outcome if they receive little weight during proposal scoring.
Write Requirements Around Outcomes
An effective municipal RFP does not need to mandate a particular CMS or technology.
Instead of requiring a specific platform, define the outcome: the website should be open-source, portable, maintainable by qualified third parties, and exportable without unreasonable restrictions.
That creates a technology-neutral procurement process while helping your municipality protect its most important digital asset.
Planning a new municipal website? Ask the Egghead can help you evaluate your website requirements and build an open-source solution designed around ownership, portability, accessibility, and long-term control. Contact Ask the Egghead today to discuss your government website project.
