The California Department of Technology is continuing its effort to reduce the 42 procurement options state departments currently have for technology purchases.
“Our goal is to remove redundancy, simplify the process and consolidate as much as possible. With partnering with DGS [Department of General Services] and our experts in the vendor community, we’re hoping to achieve this,” said Marlon Paulo, acting deputy director of Statewide Technology Procurement.
A vendor subcommittee has been advising the department on the project and it includes several smaller projects.
Software and hardware purchase options will be rolled into a contract catalog.
At the same time, the department is working to transition departments from CALNET 3 to CALNET 4, an iterative attempt to streamline networking and telecommunications needs. CALNET provides pre-approved contracts that have been vetted and fall within state policy and oversight policies.
Contracts have been awarded for metropolitan area networks, low-cost broadband and managed Internet.
A structured cabling contract will be added between July and August of this year, but a vendor has not been selected.
A third effort is the purchasing authority accreditation that will help expand state departments ability to purchase software solutions on their own.
The new system would create a three-year authorization and pair a department’s purchasing rights with tiers of spending limits. The highest level is $5 million, but only two departments would be eligible so far.
“[As] the dollar amounts escalate, the more training their staff [receive], the more experience they get, and our goal is to bring people more and more into those upper ranges so that you don’t have to go to my CMAS [California Multiple Award Schedules] people. They don’t have to get exemptions every time,” said DGS Acquisitions Chief Eric Mandell.
