BOISE – Idaho state government’s efforts to use the Internet to modernize its purchasing procedures through the buying of goods and services and the posting of bids electronically has been selected for national recognition by the Council of State Governments (CSG).
The Idaho Purchasing Moderation Initiative was chosen as one of eight national winners in CSG’s 2002 Innovations Awards Program from among 150 applications. The Division of Purchasing, Department of Administration, developed the initiative through a collaborative agency effort.
The State’s new on-line system became operational last year, after the Purchasing Modernization legislation became law on July 1, 2001. Purchasing Statutes 25 years old were changed to reflect today’s technology and trends and to achieve greater efficiencies over the state’s environment of paper-order processing. The legislation involved 20 changes to 12 Sections of the Idaho Code. Governor Dirk Kempthorne signed the legislation after it received remarkable support through several legislative committees and from leading business interests, and unanimous approval by both the Idaho House and Senate.
“Purchasing departments are developing and implementing ways of buying goods and services electronically, just as their counterparts in the private sector are doing,” says Jan Cox, Acting Director, Department of Administration.
Cox attributes the success of the program and its national recognition to the overall effort of a Task Force comprised of state agency purchasing, accounting and human resource officials, IT technical support staff, and vendors. The group was charged with evaluating the existing statewide procurement system and making recommendations. In addition, a survey was done with over 300 participating businesses in large and small communities at the end of the project’s first year as a major initiative, to determine if they were ready for electronic purchasing. The state received more than 200 responses with surprising results.
“Ninety-two percent of the vendors who responded said they were ready to do business with the state electronically,” Cox said. “And the number of positive responses that came from vendors in small rural communities, where we had worried about the availability of Internet access, were particularly encouraging.”
From May 1, 2001 to August 31 of this year, 8,810 vendors are using the electronic system, with a total of 11,647 transactions processed online for a total of $99 million.
This is the second, consecutive year the state’s progress in using the Internet to make government more accessible to Idaho citizens has received national recognition by the CSG. Idaho’s Small Business Solutions website received a 2001 award. The 2002 Innovation Award will be presented during the CSG Annual State Trends and Leadership Forum in Richmond, VA, in December.
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