How HBITS works
HBITS — Hourly-Based IT Services — is the New York State contract through which State agencies hire IT people by the hour, through approved vendors. It is OGS award 23158, running 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2029. This page describes the documented mechanism and links to the OGS documents that define it; it is information, not advice.
Who the parties are
A State agency needs a person for a role. OGS (the Office of General Services) runs the contract and the process. The vendors — the 30 active firms on the award, each with a published contact sheet and pricing schedule — find and submit candidates. The candidate is you: an individual who works through one of those firms, never with the State directly.
OGS’s documents call those firms Active Contractors. This site calls them vendors throughout, and means exactly the same firms; the contract’s own wording is kept wherever it is quoted.
The OGS contractor list, with each vendor’s pricing schedule ↗
Titles, skill levels and regions
Every position is one of 31 job titles at one of four skill levels, in one of three regions — all defined by OGS in Attachment 4, and all three set the published rate.
- Junior
- 12–36 months of experience.
- Mid-Level
- 36–60 months of experience; works independently without assistance.
- Senior
- 60–84 months of experience; works independently and guides others.
- Expert
- 84+ months of experience; provides guidance to large teams, extensive industry experience.
- Region 1
- Rest of New York State — All counties in New York State not in Region 2 or Region 3 — Albany and the Capital Region, Central and Western NY, the North Country and the Southern Tier.
- Region 2
- Mid-Hudson — Dutchess, Orange and Putnam counties.
- Region 3
- NYC metro — Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, Westchester, Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens and Richmond counties.
The two rates, and which one matters
For every title, level and region, each vendor publishes two figures in its pricing schedule (Attachment 1). Both are fixed in advance; nothing is set at the time of placement (§1.2.7):
- The hourly bill rate — what the vendor charges the State for your hour. This is the number the cost screen runs on, and the number the rate chart ranks by.
- The hourly wage rate — the minimum the vendor must pay you (§1.2.8): “no less than the Hourly Wage Rate bid.” It is a floor, not what you will be paid; the vendor may pay more.
Both are public, per vendor, and the chart reproduces them exactly as published — nothing here is estimated.
How a task order moves
- Form 1 — the task order request. The agency describes the position (title, level, region, duration, the mandatory and requested qualifications) and sends it to OGS, which validates it in two to three business days.
- The task order goes to every active vendor at once. Each may respond with up to two candidates per position (§1.2.2).
- Form 2 — the candidate response. Vendors submit candidates within the response window, ten days. This is where your name, your résumé and your vendor’s bill rate go in together.
- Qualification, then the cost screen. OGS first checks each response against the mandatory qualification and at least 60% of the requested qualifications (§1.9.6). Only the responses that pass count. Then the cost screen (§1.4.3) sets a threshold from those valid responses — the greatest of the (5 × positions)-th lowest bill rate, the median bill rate + 5%, and the median + one standard deviation — and every candidate at or under it goes forward. Rate gates; it is not scored.
- Forms 3A and 3B — technical and interview evaluation. The agency scores the candidates who cleared the screen: 80 points technical, 20 points interview (Attachment 5). It may not pass over a higher-scoring candidate.
- Form 4 — the selected candidate. The award goes to the top-scoring candidate, at the vendor’s published bill rate.
One rule every candidate should know
If two vendors submit the same candidate for the same position, only the one with the lowest bill rate is considered. The others are disqualified and, in the contract’s words, “under no circumstance” permitted to resubmit (§1.3.3.2).
A vendor needs your permission to put your name forward. OGS reserves the right to ask the lowest-billing vendor for written proof that you gave it, and if that proof does not come, the candidate may be released and the next-lowest considered. It is a right OGS reserves rather than a check that runs every time — but it is real, and it is the answer to a submission you did not authorise. It cuts both ways: a vendor that submits you unasked at a lower rate can take the placement from the vendor you did choose.
So let one vendor submit you, and know which one.
What this site does with all that
The rate chart takes the published pricing schedules of the 30 active vendors (parsed 2026-09-02, updated when OGS publishes new schedules) and, for each title, level and region, shows every vendor’s bill rate ranked, where the §1.4.3 threshold would fall if everyone submitted, and which vendors sit at or under it. Nothing is fetched from anyone but OGS, and every figure links to its source document. The threshold is our arithmetic using OGS’s published method, not a figure OGS issues.
The documents, from OGS
Published by Saathi Digital. We are an independent publisher — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of New York State, OGS or any State agency. Everything above is drawn from New York State OGS award 23158 and its attachments as published; where the documents and this page differ, the documents govern. Information, not advice. Found something wrong? Tell us.