e-Procurement and Reform

I firmly believe that, at all levels, our democracy needs to be more transparent. From local elected officials giving valuable business to their friends and supporters, to national officials getting kickbacks in a variety of forms (business for their relatives, friends, PACs, non-profit foundations, etc.), transparency is sorely needed. Citizens (taxpayers!) need to know how their money is being appropriated, what their getting for the money, and whether they're getting the best price for the best product.

The best way to enforce fiscal discipline and transparent purchasing is to make the entire system public with a low (or no) bar for entrance. Some municipal governments have come to this conclusion and implemented systems to accommodate their goals including small business set-asides, local preferences, minority and women-owned business preferences, all while achieving a more competitive bidding process. New York City's system is free; all that is necessary is to register with a business tax id number.

While some municipalities have their own systems, many smaller municipalities do not have their own online procurement system, instead relying on their state's procurement system and/or publicizing their projects (Requests for Proposals, Qualifications, etc.) through the local newspapers, that is assuming that their local laws require them to publicize projects out for bidding. The city where I live, Northampton MA, has a website with a content management system which would make it seem likely that they would have a procurement section, but alas, they rely on the State's system (CommPass) and posting into websites that require membership. The CommPass system is free to municipalities, however, they charge a yearly subscription fee to all vendors that wish to join and have access.

This type of system is counter-productive to the State's duty to get the most competitive bids for products and services. Why is the State charging vendors to have access to their listing of RFPs out for bid? As a taxpaying citizen I want the system open to everyone and I want as many competitive bids as possible.

Once we have a public-domain procurement system, the next step is to make sure that the evaluation of the received bids is open and unbiased. RFPs should have their evaluation criteria clearly stated in the RFP, along with the way that the RFPs will be graded. The results of the evaluation should be just as public as the RFPs, enabling anyone to see why one vendor was chosen over another vendor.

Does this seem like a lot of work? Yes, it is, but it is the initiative necessary to rid our country of the Jack Abramoffs that corrupt the integrity of our system.