No Single Source of Truth:

Conclusions 16

• CL1 Page 49
  The County cannot find accurate contract information in a timely manner. This hinders the County Executive’s Office in decision making, prevents procurement cooperation that could save money, and unnecessarily wastes many hours of effort.
• CL2 Page 49
  The County saves multiple, sometimes inconsistent, copies of contract information on department storage devices and multiple procurement systems. This makes it difficult for the County to find accurate, up-to-date, information.
• CL3 Page 49
  Due to the absence of a uniform contract search system, County departments are not able to learn if other departments already have contracts that are relevant to their needs and, thus, are not able to take advantage of cooperative procurement opportunities. Further, if the County had a publicly accessible contract-search system, other government entities could use that resource to partner with the County on cooperative procurement opportunities to the benefit of the County.
• CL4 Page 50
  Multiple County departments with professional service contracts manage their procurement process using custom spreadsheets instead of using a procurement system. This leads to the County having multiple inconsistent copies of contract data and makes it difficult to measure county-wide procurement performance.
• CL5 Page 50
  Multiple departments in the County do not have a department policy for contractor evaluations and do not evaluate contractor performance. This violates the Policy Manual guidelines and could lead to departments making a poor choice of contractor.
• CL6 Page 50
  The County does not have a countywide mechanism to store and share contractor evaluations making it impossible for departments to view other departments’ evaluations.
• CL7 Page 51
  County departments cannot practically measure procurement contract lead times. The County has no way of determining if a department performing its own procurement consistently fails to establish contracts in a timely manner.
• CL8 Page 51
  Most employees engaged in procurement do not know about the County’s procurement performance goals.
• CL9 Page 51
  The County does not track procurement performance measures of individual departments involved in procurement. The County cannot evaluate the performance of those individual departments.
• CL10 Page 52
  The County does not have a countywide strategic procurement plan to address the long-standing issues of finding contracts in a timely manner, eliminating data consistency issues, measuring performance, evaluating contractors, and the choice of procurement systems.
• CL11 Page 52
  The County has made minimal progress in implementing procurement technology over the last decade because the County has failed to make this a priority.
• CL12 Page 48
  The County faces some difficult, long-standing, complex, technical, and organizational procurement issues. The County stores multiple, sometimes inconsistent, copies of contract information on different computer systems, which makes it difficult to find accurate, up-to-date information in a timely manner. County departments may use one or more procurement systems or simply rely on their own custom spreadsheets to track procurement progress, which makes it impossible to measure procurement performance consistently countywide. Without performance measures, the County cannot provide objective performance targets, monitor performance improvements, and hold departments accountable for performance. The County has made little progress in addressing the technology issues and needs of countywide procurement. The County’s hybrid procurement model, with many departments performing their own procurement, makes it difficult to plan and reach countywide agreements. The County Executive’s Office has not made procurement issues and improvement a priority and has not provided the necessary leadership to enact change. The County has no strategic plan for countywide procurement. The County should investigate the use of and development of a system to search for countywide contracts and contract information. The County of San Diego has such a system, which provides for quick, reliable searches and models transparency. A contract-search system has the potential to save County employee time thus saving money. A contract-search system should provide an easy-to-use interface that requires no training, and no authentication to access it. The easy-to-use interface should hide underlying complexities, such as where the information resides. The contract-search system should allow the County to later change the underlying procurement components without affecting the users. The Policy Manual mandates that departments evaluate contractor performance and share their evaluations. The County should provide guidelines for creating contractor evaluations and provide a system for sharing them. In the short term, the County could use a simple system based on existing database technology. In the long term, the County should consider an integrated system that combines procurement and evaluation. An integrated system could require employees to enter evaluations as appropriate. The County does not appear to have the existing talent and/or resources to dedicate to the technological solutions necessary to address the deficiencies in the current procurement systems. The County should seek outside, expert help to study the technical and organizational issues. The outside help should assist the County in developing a strategic plan. The strategic plan should provide a technology roadmap, define any organizational changes, and lead to a single source of truth.
• CL13 Page 49
  FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Finding 1 The County cannot find accurate contract information in a timely manner. This hinders the County Executive’s Office in decision making, prevents procurement cooperation that could save money, and unnecessarily wastes many hours of effort. Recommendation 1a The County should investigate other counties or similar organizations to find out if and how they solved the problem of finding up-to-date contract information in a timely manner. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024. Recommendation 1b The County should develop a plan for a countywide contract-search system. This plan should include estimated annual cost savings from using the system as well as the estimated implementation cost. This recommendation should be implemented by March 31, 2025. Recommendation 1c The County should evaluate the cost and benefits of using outside expert resources to plan, select components for, and develop a countywide contract-search system. This recommendation should be implemented by June 30, 2025. Finding 2 The County saves multiple, sometimes inconsistent, copies of contract information on department storage devices and multiple procurement systems. This makes it difficult for the County to find accurate, up-to-date, information. Recommendation 2a The County should define where the most up-to-date contract information is located so that a countywide contract-search system can find that information. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024. Recommendation 2b The County should create a plan to eliminate inconsistent contract information. This recommendation should be implemented by March 31, 2025. Finding 3 Due to the absence of a uniform contract search system, County departments are not able to learn if other departments already have contracts that are relevant to their needs and, thus, are not able
• CL14 Page 50
  to take advantage of cooperative procurement opportunities. Further, if the County had a publicly accessible contract-search system, other government entities could use that resource to partner with the County on cooperative procurement opportunities to the benefit of the County. Recommendation 3 The County should discuss cooperative procurement methods, such as contract piggybacking, with potential government partners and ask the potential government partners to provide their requirements for a countywide contract-search system accessible to them. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024. Finding 4 Multiple departments in the County do not have a department policy for contractor evaluations and do not evaluate contractor performance. This violates the Policy Manual guidelines and could lead to departments making a poor choice of contractor. Recommendation 4 The County should provide employees with a contractor evaluation template that includes criteria such as overall satisfaction, quality, cost-effectiveness, and timeliness. The County should provide guidelines for County employees that explain when and how to evaluate a contractor and how to use the contractor evaluation template. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2014. Finding 5 The County does not have a countywide mechanism to store and share contractor evaluations making it impossible for departments to view other departments’ evaluations. Recommendation 5a The County should develop a short-term plan for a simple countywide system for storing and sharing contractor evaluations. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024. Recommendation 5b The County should develop a long-term plan for an integrated procurement and evaluation system that requires employees to enter an evaluation for appropriate contracts. This recommendation should be implemented by March 31, 2025. Finding 6 Multiple County departments with professional service contracts manage their procurement process using custom spreadsheets instead of using a procurement system. This leads to the County
• CL15 Page 51
  having multiple inconsistent copies of contract data and makes it difficult to measure county-wide procurement performance. Recommendation 6 The County should develop a plan for the implementation of one or more procurement systems that departments must use instead of custom spreadsheets. The procurement system(s) should improve efficiency, help automate the procurement of professional service contracts, and allow integration with existing procurement and financial systems. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024. Finding 7 County departments cannot practically measure procurement contract lead times. The County has no way of determining if a department performing its own procurement consistently fails to establish contracts in a timely manner. Recommendation 7 The County should establish contract lead time targets and require all departments with procurement employees to use a procurement system that makes it practical to track contract lead times. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024. Finding 8 Most employees engaged in procurement do not know about the County’s procurement performance goals. Recommendation 8 The County needs to inform all County employees involved in procurement of the procurement performance goals and make it clear how their individual performance connects to department and countywide goals. This recommendation should be implemented by October 31, 2024. Finding 9 The County does not track procurement performance measures of individual departments involved in procurement. The County cannot evaluate the performance of those individual departments. Recommendation 9 The County needs to monitor individual department performance using procurement measures such as contract lead time, competitiveness of solicitations, and cost savings. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024.
• CL16 Page 52
  Finding 10 The County does not have a countywide strategic procurement plan to address the long-standing issues of finding contracts in a timely manner, eliminating data consistency issues, measuring performance, evaluating contractors, and the choice of procurement systems. Recommendation 10 The County should develop a countywide strategic procurement plan with objective performance measures that encompass all County departments, offices, and agencies. The countywide strategic procurement plan should address the long-standing issues of finding contracts in a timely manner, eliminating data consistency issues, evaluating contractors, and the choice of procurement systems. This recommendation should be implemented by March 31, 2025. Finding 11 The County has made minimal progress in implementing procurement technology over the last decade because the County has failed to make this a priority. Recommendation 11 The County should evaluate if it has the appropriate talent and resources to develop and implement a countywide technology plan to address the procurement shortfalls. This recommendation should be implemented by December 31, 2024.

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