As demonstrated in recent years by cost overruns and project failures with crime cameras as the 311 system, any investment to modernize and integrate city data systems to support a NolaStat reform will require contract reform to ensure that any outsourced work fits into well-considered, high-priority plans, and to ensure that the work is satisfactorily completed.

Just in time for the next administration, the Bureau of Governmental Research has published some sound contract reform recommendations:

• Transfer administration of professional services contracts to a professional, non-political procurement office.
• Use committees of government employees with relevant expertise to score and rank proposals.
• Limit the mayor to signing a contract with the committee’s highest-ranked proposal, or terminating the procurement.
• Conduct all meetings involving evaluation and selection of contractors as open meetings, and facilitate start-to-finish oversight by the Inspector General.
• Use standardized Requests for Proposals and Requests for Qualifications designed to identify the best contractor for the job.
• Aggressively advertise contracts to elicit maximum competition.
• Monitor contractor performance to confirm the contractor fulfills its obligations.

Tags: Contracts

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.