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Senate Bill 20 |
Senate Author: Nelson et al. |
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Effective: 9-1-15 |
House Sponsor: Price et al. |
Senate Bill 20 amends the Government Code and Education Code to make comprehensive changes to state agency contracting, purchasing, and accounting procedures. Among other provisions, the bill requires the state auditor to audit the performance of Health and Human Services Commission contracts in excess of $100 million in annual value. The bill requires the comptroller of public accounts to conduct, in cooperation with the governor's budget and policy staff, a study examining the feasibility and practicality of consolidating state purchasing functions into fewer state agencies or one state agency. The bill provides for the retention of contract and related documents by state agencies and restricts former state officers and employees who participated in procurement or contract negotiations with a person during their employment from accepting employment with that person for two years.
With respect to state agency accounting procedures, Senate Bill 20 requires the Texas Department of Information Resources under the Information Resources Management Act and related provisions to post all contract solicitation documents to the centralized statewide accounting and payroll system. The bill also requires state agencies to report contract and purchasing information in the uniform manner required by the comptroller and authorizes a state agency in the legislative branch to elect to participate in the enterprise resource planning system.
With respect to the State Purchasing and General Services Act, Senate Bill 20 provides for verification of the use of a best value standard in state agency contracting and procurement and expands the circumstances under which a vendor may be barred from participating in state contracts. The bill also establishes additional requirements for the training, continuing education, and certification of state agency purchasing personnel and adds ethics training to the requirements. The bill requires state agencies to review vendor performance after certain contracts are completed or terminated and to report the results of the review to the comptroller. Additionally, the bill authorizes the Texas Facilities Commission to participate in, sponsor, or administer a cooperative purchasing agreement. The bill requires a state agency contracting to purchase an information technology commodity item to use the list of items available for purchase through the Department of Information Resources and prohibits a state agency from entering into a contract to purchase a commodity item if the value of the contract exceeds $1 million. The bill establishes additional contract requirements for the purchase of information technology items by a state agency.
With respect to state contracting standards and oversight, Senate Bill 20 establishes ethics, reporting, and approval requirements for certain Texas Department of Transportation and higher education contracts. The bill requires state employees and officials involved in procurement and contract management for such an agency to disclose to the agency any potential conflict of interest with respect to any contract with a private vendor or bid for the purchase of goods or services from a private vendor. The bill prohibits an applicable state agency from entering into a contract for the purchase of goods or services with a private vendor with whom certain persons have a financial interest. The bill provides for required posting of certain contracts, enhances contract and performance monitoring, and establishes additional requirements applicable to contracts with a value in excess of $1 million or $5 million. The bill requires each applicable state agency to develop and comply with a purchasing accountability and risk analysis procedure and requires such a state agency that becomes a participant in the centralized accounting and payroll systems to use the systems to identify and record each contract entered into by the agency. The bill authorizes the comptroller to assess fees for training contract managers, provides for the comptroller's rating of vendors, requires a state agency to use the vendor performance tracking system to determine whether to award a contract to a vendor reviewed in the tracking system, and requires the comptroller to make the vendor performance tracking system available to the public.
With respect to institutions of higher education, Senate Bill 20 conditions an institution of higher education's purchasing authority on compliance with standards established by the bill and requires the disclosure of sponsors of contracted research in any public communication based on the results of the sponsored research.