Report 2009-114 Recommendation 1 Responses

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)

Recommendation #1 To: General Services, Department of

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.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2013

At the time of our previous update in September 2012, the DGS' Procurement Division (PD) had fully implemented this recommendation except for the final step of comparing expected savings for a sourced contract to actual savings. As of August 2013, this activity is now in place for sourced contracts.

PD's Intake and Analysis Unit has developed a guide describing the process to be followed in comparing actual to expected savings in order to determine if a new competitively bid solicitation met the expected savings. Consequently, PD implemented the provisions contained in that guide in performing savings comparisons for recently awarded statewide contracts for Waterborne Paint and PC Goods.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From September 2012

At the time of our previous update in November 2011, the DGS had fully implemented this recommendation except for the final step of comparing expected savings for a sourced contract to actual savings based on usage reports. This activity is now in place for sourced contracts. See Enclosure I for an example of a savings report for contracts under the Multifunctional Devices category of equipment.

It should be noted that the DGS previously reported that a maintenance, repair and operations statewide contract would be used to show the savings calculation process. However, after conducting an opportunity assessment, the DGS decided to not move forward on that contract.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Not Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2009-114

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.