Procurement

GFOA rec­om­mends that gov­ern­ments imple­ment a pur­chas­ing card pro­gram to improve the effi­cien­cy and effec­tive­ness of their pur­chas­ing processes. 

Gov­ern­ments should care­ful­ly ana­lyze all aspects of a ser­vice deliv­ery option, includ­ing lev­els of ser­vice, ser­vice qual­i­ty and expect­ed per­for­mance, ser­vice rev­enues and costs, required tran­si­tion activ­i­ties and oth­er rel­e­vant fac­tors before chang­ing ser­vice deliv­ery methods. 

GFOA rec­om­mends that gov­ern­ments review their finan­cial ser­vices con­tracts every five years and use a com­pet­i­tive process for the pro­cure­ment of finan­cial services.

Issuers should select bond coun­sel on the basis of mer­it using a com­pet­i­tive process and review those rela­tion­ships periodically.

Issuers should hire a munic­i­pal advi­sor (MA) pri­or to the under­tak­ing of debt financ­ing unless the issuer has suf­fi­cient in-house exper­tise and access to cur­rent bond mar­ket infor­ma­tion, and issuers should select munic­i­pal advi­sors on the basis of mer­it using a com­pet­i­tive process and that issuers review those rela­tion­ships periodically.

State and local gov­ern­ments should take the appro­pri­ate steps to obtain high-qual­i­ty actu­ar­i­al ser­vices for their pub­lic retire­ment plans.