By Mark Glover, The Sacramento Bee
Two Sacramento-area technology companies have been awarded a national contract that would enable them to offer fraud-detection services to government entities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Quest Technology Management, the Sacramento consulting and data-storage firm, and Gold River-based fraud-detection specialist Pondera Solutions were designated by the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) to make fraud-detection software accessible at discounted, prenegotiated rates to departments and agencies with state, regional and local governments.
That includes public school districts, public colleges and universities.
Officials of both companies said the contract creates the potential for numerous transactions, which in turn would likely create more jobs.
Jon Coss, Pondera’s CEO, declined to speculate on a specific number of job gains that his company, which employs 50, might see as a result of the contract, but added: “We’re expecting more jobs (in the Sacramento area). We’re aggressively hiring right now.”
Pondera’s Google-powered system is capable of analyzing and cross-referencing massive amounts of data from multiple platforms and records-keeping entities, including records kept by states and counties. It can rapidly laser in on fraud, waste and abuse in government programs, enabling agencies to initiate investigations and ultimately, prosecutions.
In a 2014 story in The Sacramento Bee, Quest said it employed 240 workers, including 180 in Sacramento.
Established in 1947 in Chicago, NASPO is a nonprofit association made up of the directors of the central purchasing offices in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.
©2016 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
