Contracts and Procurement
Contracts and Procurement
What is a Government Contract?
A government contract is understood to be any contract where a company is a party and involves supply of goods or services, directly or indirectly, to a government. A government contract can also include a subcontract at any tier or any level below the prime contract.
What is Procurement?
Procurement includes the multi-step process and procedure of how a government receives goods and services from an individual, business, nonprofit, or organization. The process should include a comprehensive needs assessment or study to determine contracting requirements, a competitive bidding process, a transparent contract selection, and an accurate goods or service delivery.
Florida government should apply strict procurement guidelines to ensure that the procurement process is in compliance with the law and that contract bidding is transparent.
Major Problems with the Florida Procurement and Contracts include: bid tampering, bid rigging, bid splitting and no-bid contracts.
Florida should create a uniform, competitive procurement policy, and an online platform for access to all records for every state and local government entity.
Florida should allow more citizen voices into the contracting process and never allow contracts to be approved without disclosure of the vendor name. All contracts should be audited periodically to ensure taxpayers are receiving the maximum efficiency and value for their payments.
Research Publications
Budget Transparency in the Sunshine State
Download the full PDF report here
December 2012
Executive Summary
According to a March 2012 report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) titled
“Following the Money 2012,” Florida received a D grade (59/100) on a report card of how the 50
states rate in providing online access to government spending data. In comparison, Texas
received the top score with an A grade (98/100).
The First Amendment Foundation, an organization that has been protecting and advancing open
government in Florida for over 25 years, and Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan research institute
and government watchdog group, have assessed the Transparency 2.0 website developed by
Spider Data Services and […]