Deltek Pulse: Education month in review, December 2018

As 2018 came to a close the Education vertical saw a 12% overall decrease in solicitations released for the month of December as compared to November 2018. This comes as no surprise as the end of the year marks a slow time for solicitation releases for the State, Local, and Education market as a whole. When breaking down the two verticals, the Primary/Secondary Education market saw 65% of bids where the Higher Education market had 35% of the total. These percentages show the verticals drifting back to their usual percentages with the Primary/Secondary vertical typically encompassing a little over half of the bid releases for the month.

In regards to the primary requirements of bids, December had almost identical numbers as compared to November. The values for primary requirements for the month of December have Architecture, Engineering, and Construction as the highest percentage of solicitation releases with 33%, Professional Services at 13%, and finally Information Technology at 14%. One significant value to highlight for this month is that for the first, and only, time in 2018 Information Technology solicitations surpassed the number for Professional Services in the Education market.

As for the data of procurements by state, Texas remained the state with the highest number of solicitation releases for December, followed by New York, and then California. December continued the trend set in November where the top 3 states had large margins between each, especially with New York having issued over 100 more solicitations than California. Most of 2018 saw these states easily taking the top 3 spots but typically having very close values. Finally, the fewest releases came from Vermont, Delaware, and North Dakota with Alaska and South Dakota also having fairly low numbers. The main change here is Montana and Washington, DC having a surge in bid releases for the month of December taking them out of the bottom three entities for the Education Vertical.

Notable Solicitation Releases

The Education vertical saw a few notable solicitations released this month:

• The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) issued a solicitation for a Student Anonymous Safety Tip Application. NCDPI needs to procure a mobile platform/application for students, teachers, friends, and family members for use in reporting potential threats to a NC school. The State previously released a request for information (RFI) for this requirement in April 2018 which resulted in this solicitation. Proposals are due January 25, 2019.
• The Pennsylvania Department of General Services, on behalf of the Pennsylvania Department of Education, has a requirement for a Standard Aligned System (SAS). The State is seeking services to maintain, develop, and support a web-based portal as well as for professional services for the maintenance and facilitation of existing professional development courses in the SAS PD Center. Proposals are due February 4, 2019.

You can learn more about current procurement opportunities in the GovWin IQ State, Local and Education Opportunities database. Not a Deltek subscriber? Click here to learn more about Deltek's GovWin IQ service and gain access to a free trial.