GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Office of Contracting and Procurement Open Government Report 2014 To institutionalize a culture of transparent and open government, accountability, and to expand opportunities for resident participation and collaboration, this Report describes how the Office of Contracting and Procurement has and will continue to develop and enhance transparency, public participation, and collaboration. In accordance with Mayor’s Order 2014-170, this report addresses the following topics: 1) Transparency In FY14, transparency was a top priority for the Office of Contracting and Procurement. The overarching goal was to build on the publicly reported data that OCP currently shares to provide the public with better insight as to how OCP spends taxpayer dollars on behalf of District agencies. For several years, OCP has made the following data sets publicly available: purchase orders, purchase card transactions, notices of contract award, and notices of intent to award sole source contracts. In FY14, OCP started the following initiatives in an effort to improve transparency: • In conjunction with OCTO, the agency’s website was reorganized to make it more user-friendly and the information more readily accessible to our customers. • The OCP IT team created a link between the Procurement Automated Support System and the OCP website to automatically publish awarded contracts to the website. The training manuals and sessions for the staff and the legal team are almost complete and the official rollout is expected in the next 60 to 90 days. In FY15, OCP will continue its work to advance transparency in compliance with the Procurement Practices Reform Act of 2010 and to improve overall understanding of the contracting process. 2) Public Engagement and Participation Rules and Regulations The rules and regulations that guide OCP’s work are the 27 DC Municipal Regulations and the Procurement Practices Reform Act of 2010, and are posted on the OCP website here and here. OCP follows standard procedures for promulgating all proposed rule changes in the DC Register for the 30 day comment period. 1 Stakeholder Engagement The OCP Customer Contact Center (CCC) is the primary point-of-contact for the vendor community and our agency customers. The CCC team provides general information to vendors, technical support, and vendor education. On a monthly basis, OCP offers two workshops to provide vendors an understanding of how to do business with the District, namely the General Vendor Workshop and the DC Supply Schedule workshop. These workshops provide a general overview of the procurement process, the basic requirements for a vendor to meet to do business with the District, and the application process for the DC Supply Schedule. OCP partners with the Department of Small and Local Business Development to facilitate the workshops. In addition to the vendor workshops offered by OCP, the agency also participated in over 10 community events aimed at introducing the vendor community to doing business with the District. These events included: • Councilmember Vincent Orange’s Small Business Summit; • Greater Brookland Business Association monthly meeting; • Fort Myer Small Business Roundtable • Second Annual DC to Africa: Growing Local, Going Global Business Symposium; and • National Black Business League Annual ProBiz Conference, among others. In FY14, OCP also targeted the Certified Business Enterprise (CBE) community to introduce two programs that are growing rapidly: • Surplus Property – The OCP Surplus Property program auctions gently used furniture, office supplies and equipment, vehicles, and other items that have been surplused from District government agencies as well as provides District-based 8A firms and non-profit organizations access to the federal surplus property program. In FY14, the Surplus Property program organized three roundtables to introduce non-profit organizations and the CBE community to the surplus property available to them through OCP. • Sustainable Purchasing – In FY14, another major project was the development of sustainable purchasing specifications and policies to inform some purchasing decisions. In December 2013, OCP, in partnership with DSLBD, hosted 35 vendors at a roundtable to gain insight and feedback from the District’s vendors that offer sustainable products. In planning for FY15, the priority is to create more opportunities for proactive engagement with the vendor community and other key stakeholders to educate them on the procurement process and the programs OCP . One such idea is a reverse trade fair, which gives small businesses an opportunity to market to District Government agencies that procure their goods and services. Another idea in the works is to promote our public facing programs through social media. 2 3) Collaboration In FY14, one of the Chief Procurement Officer’s priorities was eliminating silos that impede seamless coordination between the procurement office and the agency program. Accordingly, collaboration is the centerpiece of the procurement reform initiative OCP has led over the last 18 months. In February 2014, the Chief Procurement Officer announced the agency’s shift to the Delegated Procurement Authority model to better support its customer agencies’ procurement needs. Sixty members of the contracting staff were assigned to 22 customer agencies to serve as in- house procurement experts. The contracting staff now works closely with the program and budget teams at customer agencies to plan and execute their procurement needs. OCP anticipates improved customer satisfaction and potentially reduced cycle times and improved overall customer satisfaction. In FY15, OCP’s plan is to regularly measure agency customer satisfaction through a variety of survey methods. The goal is to make policy and practice decisions based on real data and feedback from our customers. 3