Enlightenment of NY govt procurement of public services

The Chinese government has vowed to purchase more public services from social organizations and ramp up the construction of high-quality infrastructure in Chinese cities.

US Experts suggested that an efficient, fair and transparent procurement system is of essential importance to the establishment of a service-oriented government.

TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND RULE OF LAW

Procurement is a basic tool used by the US local governments to deliver a wide range of services citizens expect and demand, such as school buses, foster care, health care, infrastructure construction and public sanitation.

New York City, the most populous metropolitan in the United States, procured more than 10.5 billion US dollars in supplies, services, and construction through more than 46,000 transactions in its fiscal year of 2012, according to data from the New York City Mayor's Office of Contract Services (MOCS).

For government to provide services through nonprofit social forces, "the most important principles are those of transparency, accountability, and rule of law," Richard Callahan, department chair and associate professor of Public and Nonprofit Administration at the School of Management at University of San Francisco, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

New York City government has developed a sophisticated system of government procurement and has placed great emphasis on a competitive bidding mechanism.

MOCS data showed more than 63,000 vendors are enrolled on City bidders' lists. Eighty-eight percent of contracts in the fiscal year of 2011 showed high levels of competition, which means three or more competitors, while competition for small purchases remained strong, with 85 percent of the transactions reflecting 10 or more competitors.

In terms of the qualification of public service vendors, Charles M. Brecher, professor of Public and Health Administration at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Services, said "they usually are subject to a review to make sure the people who were involved don't have any criminal records or haven't been found to involve with the company that defaulted on a contract before."

According to the MOCS, the New York City government will only award contracts to responsible contractors, meaning contractors with the technical capability and financial capacity to fully perform the requirements of the contract, as well as the business integrity to justify the award of public tax dollars.

In the United States, social organizations providing public services can be regulated by the local government, a third party and their peer social organizations. There are Controllers at city and state levels in the United States who are independently elected to be the chief fiscal and auditing officer.

Although self-regulatory mechanism has more to do with the reputation and integrity of an organization to gain a comparative edge over others, self-regulation in general is fairly small, "but it does play an important role," said David M. Van Slyke, professor at the Department of Public and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.