Report 2016-125.1 Recommendation 10 Responses
Report 2016-125.1: The University of California Office of the President: It Has Not Adequately Ensured Compliance With Its Employee Displacement and Services Contract Policies (Release Date: August 2017)
Recommendation #10 To: University of California
To ensure that the university achieves its goals of obtaining services at the lowest cost or best value and of providing vendors with fair access to contracting opportunities, the Office of the President should direct all university locations to implement controls in their online procurement systems to prevent staff from avoiding the requirement to competitively bid a contract when individual purchases of the same good or service accumulate to $100,000 or more within a fiscal year.
1-Year Agency Response
In April 2018, campuses and systemwide procurement began a quarterly review process for all suppliers that exceed $100K at each participating location. Locations assign each supplier a "status" by indicating if the payment was made through a competitively bid contract or other mechanism. Campuses may also indicate suppliers that will be subject to future competitive bids. Campuses provide a summary of the analysis to system-wide procurement each quarter. UCLA conducts its own independent process consistent with the guidance provided to all campuses and the resultant data is consistent with that provided by the other campuses.
- Completion Date: April 2018
- Response Date: August 2018
California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented
The university's chief procurement office sent a memorandum in November 2017 directing campuses to perform quarterly review of purchases to ensure that repetitive purchases that exceed $100,000 annually are considered for competitive bid.
6-Month Agency Response
To prevent staff from avoiding the requirement to competitively bid a contract when individual purchases of the same good or service accumulate to $100,000 or more within a fiscal year:
-On 11/9/17, A formal notification from the UC Chief Procurement Officer to all Campus and Office of the President procurement leaders directed campuses to implement controls to ensure compliance with CSA recommendation, to document this review and to provide a quarterly report to UC Procurement Services at the Office of the President
-Each campus senior procurement officer shall ensure that a quarterly review of purchase transactions is conducted in order to identify opportunities to aggregate for competitive bidding repetitive purchases of the same goods or services.
-Activities are underway to implement a process for locations to use to ensure compliance with the CSA recommendation. The UCOP Procurement Analytics team is currently developing reports that will be distributed to the campuses for their review. Once they have had an opportunity to analyze and refine the data a process can begin that will allow the campuses to begin reporting as of July 1, 2018.
- Estimated Completion Date: July 2018
- Response Date: February 2018
California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending
60-Day Agency Response
The Office of the President is planning a set of actions to address this recommendation. Because UC Procurement is in the midst of installing new technology the actions will include:
-A formal notification from the UC Chief Procurement Officer to all Campus and Office of the President procurement leaders to institute a quarterly review process by which each campus senior procurement officer shall ensure that a quarterly review of purchase transactions is conducted in order to identify opportunities to aggregate for competitive bidding (repetitive purchases of the same goods or services). Such review shall be documented, with one copy maintained at the campus and a second copy forwarded to the Director of Strategic Sourcing, UC Procurement Services at the Office of the President.
-Address these items in a webinar/training event for all procurement leaders and staff
-Update templates, job aids and FAQs on the Office of the President's website
-Address, in the new contracts database configuration, the functionality needed to support this solution.
- Estimated Completion Date: December 2017
- Response Date: October 2017
California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending
All Recommendations in 2016-125.1
Agency responses received are posted verbatim.