Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Measurement and Outcomes of Federal, State, and Local Procurement Policies

(Public and Non-Profit Management and Finance)

Our panel will examine the effects of purchasing policies on important government outcomes. We examine four different procurement areas: small business set aside programs, sustainable procurement, immigration detention centers, and mental health services in corrections.  While much literature exists on government procurement, it is largely descriptive or theoretical. There is a great deficiency of empirical data, despite the wide practice of government contracting and the billions in tax dollars that are spent annually. An important commonality of these four papers is the contribution of data in areas where prior data were scarce or non-existent.

 

The first paper examines inclusion policies in federal procurement that target small businesses. It uses interviews of small and mid-sized suppliers to determine whether incentives of the set-aside program result in stymied growth of small businesses, and provides practical recommendations to policy makers and public procurement professionals.

 

The second paper examines the variance in federal immigration detention facilities which are managed by federal governments, contracted out to state and local governments, or contracted out to the private sector. Currently only five percent of ICE detention facilities are directly managed by ICE. The study examines variance across 256 detention facilities with regard to type of management and performance measures.

 

The third paper examines the implementation of sustainable procurement policy in local governments. The authors construct an index for the measurement of sustainable procurement policy implementation in government. The index is based on an original survey of city department directors of finance, public works, and environment. Survey data include detailed information about city procurement systems and processes.

 

The final paper examines the influence of federal grants on the incidences of high risk contracting in state governments. It triangulates contracting records in state corrections departments with the US Department of Health and Human Services federal grant awards to states for mental health services. The study provides empirical evidence of the influence of federal grants on state contracting behavior.