The California Employment Development Department (EDD), which has had an increasingly high public profile since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, spent nearly $8 million in September on IT goods — much of it with a company that’s a heavy hitter with state government.
EDD made four of its top five IT goods purchases in September with Massachusetts-based NWN Corp., which has Sacramento-area offices. State departments making purchases from NWN this year have included the state Department of Social Services, the California Department of Technology, the California Department of Transportation, the California Department of Motor Vehicles — and EDD.
A Strike Team commissioned July 29 by Gov. Gavin Newsom to assess tech improvements needed at EDD — which had about 1.6 million unemployment claims backlogged — recommended last month that it “begin the process of truly transforming claimants’ experiences” and potentially pause its Benefit Systems Modernization project. About 400,000 of those claims have since been processed and the department expects to clear the remainder of the backlog by the end of January. Here’s what EDD spent in September, with rounding:
• $3.5 million with Colorado Springs, Colo.-based V3Gate LLC for software subscription licenses during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 Fiscal Years — the former of which began July 1. V3Gate is a supplier in a three-and-a-half-year statewide procurement begun in May 2019 and put out by the California Department of General Services. The DMV also selected V3Gate to fulfill its “need in partnership with ID.me,” the company said, for work on its Motor Voter project.
• $1.6 million with NWN for “HP 800 G5 DM i5 8GB 500GB Part #7ZT23UP#ABA” with substitutions. The start date — likely the purchase date — was Sept. 30; no end date is indicated for any of the NWN purchases.
• $1.5 million with NWN for “7ZT23UP#ABA HP 800 G5 DM i5 8GB 500 GB.” The start date was Sept. 21.
• $1 million with NWN for “7ZT23UP#ABA HP 800 G5 DM i5 8GB 500 GB.” The start date was Sept. 21. These three purchases likely refer to HP 800 G5 Desktop Mini PCs, which have internal storage of up to 500 GB.
• $253,000 with NWN for “7WL87UP#ABA HP 840 G6 i5 8GB 128SSD.” The start date was Sept. 18. This could refer to HP’s EliteBook 840 G6 laptop.
