Closer Look: CHP IT Spending

The California Highway Patrol spent about $49.46 million in IT goods, services and telecoms during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 fiscal years. That included 836 purchase orders, spread over 24 months, with the most orders in December 2016. July 2017 and June 2018 had five and four purchases, respectively.

The largest monetary portion of those orders came under statewide contracts — previously negotiated terms with vendors over a set period of time, which can be competitively bid. The next two biggest orders were software licensing programs, which require offers; and competitive bids. Those three methods made up more than 50 percent of the two-year spend.

More than half of the $49 million was spent on IT goods. $11.3 million was spent on IT services, and $1.3 million was spent on telecoms.

FY 2016-17 had a $26.5 million spend with none of it going toward telecoms. The department spent $22.9 million in FY 2017-18.