Sunshine Week: Transparency of Texas, FY 2012 IT expenditures

Published: March 11, 2013

Sunshine Week, which coincides with National Freedom of Information Day (March 16), is a national initiative organized by the American Society of News Editors to highlight the importance of open government to the public. In recognition of Sunshine Week, Deltek’s analysts will be taking transparency and contract data collected from state transparency websites and our own GovWin IQ database to highlight IT expenditure trends and procurement analysis in the state and local market.

Today, we take a look at total IT spending for the state of Texas for FY 2012, which was gathered from a top-ranked Texas transparency website. The cumulative spending data collected represents a variety of purchasing vehicles, including purchase orders (PO), statements of work (SOW), procurement cards, and statewide and agency-specific contracts used to purchase IT commodities and services.

Texas spent $132 billion in FY 2012; at $693 million, IT spending only made up .524 percent of that total. In FY 2012, Texas spent 89.2 percent of its total IT expenditure on services over commodities, most of which was spent by the same 10 to 12 state agencies, commissions, and institutions. Health and human services, higher education, justice and public safety, and transportation verticals represented roughly 71 percent of all commodities purchased. Health and human services, justice and public safety, social services, and public finance verticals encompassed approximately 62 percent of all services spending.
Each IT line item (software, hardware, maintenance services, etc.) was grouped under one the following categories: IT and telecom commodities; telecommunications services; IT professional services; and IT and telecom repair and maintenance services.
 
Analyst’s Take
With such a concentrated spending pattern, qualified IT vendors looking to do business with the state of Texas are best focusing their efforts on agencies and departments within these top verticals. IT vendors looking to get a share of that $693 million should know more about the state’s procurement process. For instance, Texas has bottle-necked most of its standard IT procurement needs through statewide cooperative contracts, which are handled by the Department of Information Resources (DIR). Most statewide contracts come up for renewal every four to five years, and Deltek’s state and local team monitors these contracts as well as any other more specialized IT procurements not supported by DIR.
A few statewide contracts currently being monitored in Deltek’s GovWin IQ database include:
Deltek will publish a full length report,“State Government Transparency Report 2013,” providing detailed itemized IT expenditures for the state of Texas and many other states in the coming weeks.
GovWin IQ subscribers can learn more about these statewide contracts in the provided links. Non-subscribers can gain access with a GovWin IQ free trial.