State Agencies Undergo Sunset Review Process – Procurement and Support Services Division of the Comptroller of Public Accounts
Over the last few months, I have been outlining Texas’ sunset review process. The agencies I have covered include the State Employee Charitable Campaign Policy Committee, State Commission on Judicial Conduct, the Texas Pension Review Board, Correctional Managed Health Care Committee, the Department of Information Resources and numerous others. As a reminder, in order to identify and eliminate government waste, duplication and general inefficiencies in state agencies, the Texas Legislature established the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission in 1977. The sunset review process is designed to review each of these agencies every twelve years. This review is done by taking up a certain number of the state agencies each session when the Texas Legislature convenes.
In my last article covering the sunset process, we examined the Windham School District within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice which has underwent a partial sunset review. The Windham School District which is within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is statutorily tasked with reducing recidivism; reducing the cost of confinement or imprisonment; increasing the success of former offenders in obtaining and maintaining employment; and providing incentives to offenders to behave in positive ways during imprisonment. In this week’s article, we are going to review the Procurement and Support Service Division of the Comptroller of Public Accounts which is currently under a partial sunset review process.
During the 80th Texas Legislature House Bill 3560 eliminated the Texas Building and Procurement Commission. The management of property was reorganized into the Texas Facilities Commission which we reviewed this past summer. All other functions of the previous Texas Building and Procurement Commission were placed within the Comptroller of Public Accounts. The Procurement and Support Service Division is responsible for managing and awarding hundreds of statewide contracts on behalf of more than 200 state agencies and approximately 1,900 local government co-op members.
Through the ability of the Procurement and Support Service Division to manage and award contracts on behalf of state agencies and local governments, they are able to utilize the purchasing power of billions of dollars in order to get the best deals possible. In addition, this provides the state with the ability to help a wide variety of vendors in which provide an array of goods and services, this includes minority and women owned businesses. Some of the items which the Procurement and Support Service Division can help statistically source are fleet vehicles, prison food, road aggregate, mailing equipment, overnight delivery services and office equipment just to name a few.
If you are interested in learning more about the Procurement and Support Service Division, you can go to their website at https://www.window.state.tx.us/procurement/. On their site you can find information on how to sign up as a vendor, search for vendors or look up bids, along with many other things.
The last agency we will review in the upcoming weeks is the Public Utilities Commission which is also currently going through a partial sunset review process.
If you would like to learn more on your own about the Sunset Advisory Commission or other agencies undergoing the sunset review process, you can go to www.sunset.state.tx.us .
If you have any questions regarding the Procurement and Support Service Division or the sunset review process, please don’t hesitate to contact either my Capitol or District office. My offices are available at any time to assist with questions, concerns or comments (Capitol Office, 512-463-0672; District Office, 361-949-4603).
