Report 2009-114 Recommendations
When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information regarding their progress in implementing recommendations from our reports at three intervals from the release of the report: 60 days, six months, and one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below, is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor's assessment of auditee's response based on our review of the supporting documentation.
Recommendations in Report 2009-114: Department of General Services: It No Longer Strategically Sources Contracts and Has Not Assessed Their Impact on Small Businesses and Disabled Veteran Business Enterprises (Release Date: July 2010)
Recommendations to General Services, Department of | ||
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Number | Recommendation | Status |
1 | To ensure that it determines savings to the State going forward for strategically sourced contracts, General Services should examine the State's recent purchasing patterns when determining whether to rebid or extend previously strategically sourced contracts and when estimating expected savings. It should subsequently compare the savings it achieves to the expected savings for those contracts. |
Fully Implemented |
2 | To ensure that it maximizes the savings to the State for future purchases, General Services should follow the procedures for identifying strategic sourcing opportunities included in the IAU's procedures manual. To ensure that it is effectively identifying new strategic sourcing opportunities, General Services should work to obtain comprehensive and accurate data on the specific items that state agencies are purchasing, including exploring options for obtaining such data for agencies that do not have enterprise-wide systems and therefore would not be using the additional functionality of the eProcurement system. Until it obtains such data, General Services should work with state agencies to identify detailed purchases for categories that it identifies through the State Contract and Procurement Registration System (SCPRS) as viable opportunities for strategically sourcing. For example, if based on its review of SCPRS data, General Services identifies a particular category that it believes is a good candidate for strategic sourcing, it should work with those state agencies that accounted for the most purchases within the category to determine the types and volume of specific goods purchased to further analyze the types of goods to strategically source. General Services should assess any need for additional resources based on the savings it expects to achieve. |
Fully Implemented |
3 | To provide decision makers with the information necessary to determine the true costs and benefits of strategic sourcing, General Services should evaluate any impact strategic sourcing has on small business and DVBE participation in terms of number of contracts awarded and amounts paid to small businesses and DVBEs within the categories being strategically sourced. Specifically, for goods that were strategically sourced, General Services should compare the number of contracts awarded to small businesses and DVBEs before they were strategically sourced with those awarded through such contracts after they were strategically sourced. This effort should include contracts awarded by General Services and other state agencies. |
Fully Implemented |
4 | To evaluate the effectiveness of the off ramp in providing opportunities for small business and DVBE participation, General Services should track the number and dollar amounts of contracts that state agencies award through the use of the off ramps in strategically sourced and other mandatory statewide contracts. General Services' evaluation also should consider the extent to which an off ramp affects the monetary benefits that result from statewide contracts designed to leverage the State's purchasing power. |
Fully Implemented |
5 | To ensure that small business and DVBE subcontractors comply with the commercially useful function requirements, General Services should develop guidance for state agencies on how to ensure that subcontractors perform commercially useful functions if it believes state agencies making the purchases through statewide contracts should be responsible for this task. In addition, General Services should monitor, on a sample basis, whether state agencies are ensuring compliance with these requirements. General Services could leverage its efforts by working with other state agencies to ensure that subcontractors claiming to have provided the goods and services to the purchasing agency did, in fact, perform the work for which they are invoicing the state agencies. |
Fully Implemented |
6 | To improve the integrity of its monitoring of pricing compliance, General Services should implement procedures to help ensure that usage reports reflect the actual items received and prices paid by the state agencies that purchased the items. For example, on a periodic basis, it could select a sample of purchases from the usage reports and work with purchasing state agencies to confirm that the prices and quantity of items reported reconcile with the invoices submitted by the contractor. |
Fully Implemented |
7 | To ensure that it has maximized the savings for CGI-recommended categories that it did not strategically source, General Services should conduct its planned review of these categories to determine if there are further opportunities to achieve savings. |
Fully Implemented |
8 | To ensure prompt recovery of state funds, General Services should implement standard procedures to recover overcharges identified by the Compliance and Savings Administration system. General Services' new procedures should specify the amount of time it considers reasonable to recover funds due back to the State. |
Fully Implemented |