Follow-up Report on City’s Emergency Contracting Practices

Executive Summary

In response to the 2012 report, the City’s Department of Procurement Services (DPS) stated that it would adopt the IGO’s recommendations, including the use of a standard emergency contract request form to ensure City departments provide a more thorough written justification for emergency contracts.

This IGO follow-up report describes the City’s emergency contracting activities in the six months following the IGO’s original investigation. The number of emergency procurements dropped from four in the six months from November 2011 through April 2012, to one in the six months from May through October 2012. This represents a further decrease from the 11 emergency contracts awarded during the same prior-year period, May through October 2011. DPS reported to the IGO that it renewed its efforts to steer departments toward other standard procurement processes and to reserve emergency contracting as a last resort. The decline suggests that emergency contracts are becoming increasingly rare, which, going forward, may significantly reduce the fiscal and operational risks involved when standard procurement
processes are not followed.