Public-sector website RFPs often describe a new look, a CMS, and “all existing content.” Those three phrases can hide a migration, an accessibility backlog, and a politics problem. Read them before you price them.
Find the mandatory list
Separate requirements that will be scored from wishes in the introduction. Integrations, languages, hosting constraints, and go-live dates are usually mandatory. A redesigned seal and a new tagline are usually not. Price the first list. Note the second as optional, in writing, so a committee is not left to guess what the number includes.
Ask who publishes
If the RFP does not name the editors, ask in the question period. A site for two communications staff is a different product from a site for forty department contributors. Training days, roles, and permissions belong in the response either way. Leaving them out is how “CMS configuration” becomes an argument later.
Treat content as scope
“Migrate all pages” is not a scope. Count templates, PDFs that must become pages, and URLs that must redirect. Offer a content freeze date. Without one, the institution will keep publishing on the old site through the weekend you planned to cut over.
The honest exclusion is a feature. It is how a committee says yes.
Say what year one is not
Portals, payment engines, and a full archive remediation rarely fit the same award as a public website. Name them as later phases. Evaluators can score a boundary. They cannot score a shrug.