DECEMBER 09, 2005 Interim Chief Procurement Officer Details Safeguards to Assure Enhanced Transparency in the Contracting Process (Washington, DC) In testimony today before the Council of the District of Columbia Committee on Operations, Herbert R. Tillery, Deputy Mayor for Operations and Interim Chief Procurement Officer of the Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP), detailed safeguards that support spending transparency in the contracting process. Mr. Tillery also detailed the volume of business going into the local economy and commented on the total volume and number of transactions that support the government services under the administration of Mayor Anthony A. Williams. All $100,000 and above sole source contracts, a procurement method required in certain cases, are reviewed by OCP to assure the efficacy of the purchase prior to making an award to a vendor. All under $100,000 are reviewed post-award. Sole source contracts are essential to governmental operations in the case of purchasing certain equipment, such as fire engines, police arms and bullets, certain health interventions and support systems, required public notice advertising, memberships, and subscriptions. To safeguard the disposal of DC Government surplus property, Mr. Tillery established, in April 2005, an online auction process using a contractor whose fees for service decline from 4.5% to 3.9% over 5 years. The first year's proceeds returned over $335,000 to the DC Government. In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, Mr. Tillery's office processed twenty-one thousand transactions for a volume of approximately $1,104,956,800. Of this volume, $269.6 million was spent in the local economy with companies certified by the DC Government as Local, Small, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, an increase of $60 million from the previous year. In order to safeguard the oversight of work that is done by contractors and to assure the reliability of the goods and services delivered, OCP, under Mr. Tillery's direction, is requiring that agency personnel responsible for this oversight are trained as Contracting Officer's Technical Representatives and have the skills needed for the oversight required prior to authorizing payment by their agency financial officer to the contractor. The Office of Contracting and Procurement, established in 1997, is required by law to seek City Council approval for all contract actions at the $1 million level and above.