Report 2018-114 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2018-114: Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program: The Departments of General Services and Veterans Affairs Have Failed to Maximize Participation and to Accurately Measure Program Success (Release Date: February 2019)

Recommendation #3 To: General Services, Department of

To ensure that awarding departments can effectively identify DVBE firms that provide needed products and services, General Services should work with these departments to continue to narrow the codes available to those commonly used by awarding departments to more precisely identify what the State purchases and streamline search criteria in Cal eProcure.

1-Year Agency Response

As of January 2020, DGS PD has provided the shortened custom code set to the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal). On January 14, 2020, PD has informed departments of this change at the Purchasing Authority Roundtable (PART) meeting. Training will be rolled out once FI$Cal has completed their portion of the solution.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

The DGS Procurement Division (PD) continues to work on refining an updated version of the United Nations Standard Product and Services (UNSPSC) set to be implemented in the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal). Originally it was planned for a July 2019 release date; unfortunately, PD is pushing that deadline out to January 2020. This allows for PD to continue to provide Departments support and assistance with their backlog transactions, while not introducing anything new that could potentially slow that effort down.

The purpose of a refined code set is to customize it so that Departments are spending less time attempting to find codes for goods and services they purchase every day. The new code set will also allow Department buyers to be able to easily identify Suppliers, which provide those same goods and services, and increase data accuracy by limiting the number of choices to only those that are relevant to the State of California.

DGS PD will inform Departments of this change through the Purchasing Authority Roundtable (PART) meeting; SB/DVBE Advocate Quarterly meetings; Delegation Accreditation meetings, and this topic being part of the Cal Procurement Contract Academy (Cal PCA) Basic training module will be updated. This way new buyers, as well as the seasoned buyers and the supplier communities will all understand how to identify the correct UNSPSC to accurately reflect what the state buys.

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

60-Day Agency Response

The DGS Procurement Division is currently working with the updated version of the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) set to refine and build a custom code set that reflects what the state procures, which will be updated in the Financial Information System for California (FI$Cal) once it is finalized by July 2019. This refined code set will benefit state departments because they will spend less time searching for the correct codes, find vendors more easily, and increase the data accuracy by limiting the number of choices. DGS will inform departments through Purchasing Authority Roundtable (PART) meetings, SB/DVBE Advocate Quarterly meetings, Delegation Accreditation meetings, and is a topic of discussion in the Basic Acquisition training module as part of the Cal Procurement Contract Academy, the need to identify the UNSPSC codes they regularly use for purchases in order to accurately reflect what they buy.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2018-114

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.