Deltek Pulse: Education month in review, May 2019

The month of May continued the trend of increasing bid releases for the Education market. The month of April saw a 112% uptick in bid releases and May followed suit with another increase of 2.2%. Not nearly as large as April’s but that was after a slow March. The Education market is continuing to see a steady, and sometimes intense, build of solicitations being issued.

When we look at the two verticals, Primary/Secondary and Higher Education, we see the Primary market with 70% of bid releases and Higher Education at 30% of releases. This is just a 1% change compared to last month. In regards to the primary requirements of bids, April had Architecture, Engineering, and Construction continuing to lead with 29% of Education bids, and then Professional Services followed with 14%, and Information Technology came in with 11%. Overall, AEC experienced a slight decrease in its percentage where both Professional Services and Information Technology had slight growth.

As for Education procurement data by state, for the first time in over 17 months the top state spot did not go to Texas. The top three remained the same as it was for the entirety of 2018 and the start to 2019, but came in as New York, then Texas, and followed by California for the highest number of solicitation releases in May. The fewest releases this month came from Vermont, followed by Delaware, and DC. To continue the analysis on the overall increases, New York experienced a 29% surge after a 98% increase in April, Texas saw a modest 9% increase into May, and California came in with the only decrease at 13% which was after a 131% uptick moving from March to April this year. The Education vertical is showing strong numbers as we move into the close of Quarter 2 of 2019 and summer often proves to be a heavy solicitation time across all verticals.

Notable Solicitation Releases

The Education vertical saw a number of significant solicitations released this month with the following to highlight:

• The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has a requirement for Multi-State Alternate Assessments (MSAA). The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) as fiscal agent, is acting on behalf of a cooperative Multi-State Alternate Assessment (MSAA) project among participating States. In accordance with federal and state legislation we are requesting proposals for activities related to the implementation, maintenance, and ongoing development of the criterion-referenced alternate assessment, based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS) for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This work will continue the work initially conducted by the National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC). The MSAA in English language arts (ELA), and mathematics will be administered beginning in spring 2020 and continue through the term of the contract. Proposals are due by June 27, 2019.
• The Massachusetts Executive Office of Education (EOE) released a solicitation for a State Financial Aid Processing Software System. The EOE The Executive Office of Education (EOE) seeks to procure the following: a Financial Aid Processing Software System and an implementation and maintenance agreement for FAPSS. Final proposals are due July 2, 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.