New York City is partnering with SmartProcure in an effort to cut purchasing costs by city agencies, Comptroller John Liu announced on Monday.
“New Yorkers know how to shop around to find good deals, and this partnership will give our government the ultimate tool for comparison shopping,” Liu said in a press release. “Knowing exactly what prices vendors offer other governments will help city agencies negotiate the best possible deals for taxpayers.”
SmartProcure maintains a national repository of 58 million purchase orders from more than 2,200 federal, state, and local government agencies. The new partnership will give the city’s more than 100 chief contracting officers access to purchasing information by governments from around the United States, allowing them to quickly determine the best value, price, and source for every purchase. Before now, city agencies didn’t have access to this data.
“If better procurement data reduces the city’s $11 billion contracts budget by just 1%, we will realize savings of more than $100 million a year,” Ari Hoffnung, Deputy Comptroller of Budget & Public Affairs, said in the release. “This is one of the many ways that Big Data’ can help make local governments more efficient.”
SmartProcure connects thousands of local, state, and federal agencies to government contractors in order to determine market opportunities, product trends, and competitive intelligence. SmartProcure provides all participating government agencies with access to this database at no cost.
“With this data, New York City can easily find which vendors provide the best products, both in terms of price and performance,"Jeff Rubenstein, Founder & CEO of SmartProcure, said. "They will be able to see every government agency across the U.S. that any vendor has sold anything to and assess value from multiple vectors.”
The comptroller's office has been using technology to contain costs and expand transparency. Over the past three years, they have launched several websites, including Checkbook NYC, an online transparency tool, and The People’s Budget NYC, a crowd-sourcing tool. The comptroller’s office also launched the “NYC 311+” app, which lets New Yorkers see information requests on interactive maps and write reviews for subways, playgrounds, and libraries.
Up next, a joint effort by the Liu’s office and the mayor’s Office of Contract Services will make the city the first municipality in the country to publicly report payments made to subcontractors.
