Report 2008-501 Recommendation 4 Responses

Report 2008-501: California Prison Health Care Services: It Lacks Accurate Data and Does Not Always Comply With State and Court-Ordered Requirements When Acquiring Information Technology Goods and Services (Release Date: January 2009)

Recommendation #4 To: Correctional Health Care Services, California

To better support that it has reported all contracts and bidders to the court, Prison Health Services should develop a system of tracking all contracts executed under alternative contracting methods and retain all bids it receives for each contract. To better track its contracts, Prison Health Services should assign a sequential contract number or other unique identifier to each contract executed using alternative contracting methods.

6-Month Agency Response

Prison Health Services has developed a policy that outlines when the waiver authority may be used for entering into new contracts. The policy includes identifying which distinct project efforts such contracts may support and provides specific guidance on obtaining approval for using alternative contracting methods. The procedure includes specific criteria for the selection of contractors using one of the three processes authorized by the federal court. It also contains a checklist for ensuring that certain requirements are met and guidance for the retention of appropriate documentation in a centralized contract file, including all solicitations and bids. Prison Health Services stated that it has distributed the policy and procedure to management and staff and it has provided related training. Prison Health Services noted that all contracts processed using standard state contracting procedures clearly identify the value of the agreement by the use of standard forms. It has instructed staff to ensure that contracts developed without the use of standard forms contain all pertinent information found on the standard forms. Further, Prison Health Services noted that it identifies the value of all executed contracts by the establishment of an internal tracking log that identifies key data elements for each executed agreement. Prison Health Services maintains a log for tracking key data elements, such as funding amount and vendor name, for each executed contract using the alternative methods. In addition, Prison Health Services maintains a tracking log of the type of agreement to be executed, services to be solicited, bidders list for solicitation purposes, bidder responses, and awarded vendor information. Further, solicitation and bids for acquisitions using alternative contracting methods are centrally housed. Prison Health Services also noted that it assigns a unique identifier to contracts executed using the alternative methods. (See 2011-406 p. 63)

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2008-501

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.