ALBUQUERQUE, NM - This morning, the New Mexico Technology Council and State Auditor Tim Keller presented an informative panel on "Information Technology and the Economic Impact of Out-of-State Spending." The panel discussed the findings of a new report from the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) that shows the information technology (IT) industry has the highest percentage of government contracts that are awarded to out-of-state firms. In a two-year period, $141 million out of $164 million in large state and local government contracts for IT goods and services went out of state. Many of those contacts were non-competitive "sole source" purchases, never giving local firms a shot.
"In the information technology sector, 81 cents of every public dollar goes to companies outside New Mexico," stated State Auditor Tim Keller. "Enabling those contracts to go to homegrown businesses will go a long way towards creating local jobs and helping our economy. All it takes is strong leadership at the executive levels of state and local government to act with intention to direct more spending to in-state job creators."
The discussion began with a presentation of the report by State Auditor Tim Keller. The panel was moderated by Nyika Allen, President and CEO of the New Mexico Technology Council with panelists Katherine L. Ulibarri, Vice President for Finance and Operations of CNM; Mark Fidel, Co-Founder and Head of Corporate Development of RiskSense; Andrew Baca, President and CEO of Abba Technologies; Steve Schroeder, President of Real Time Solutions; and Raminder Mann, CEO of Advanced Network Management.
The report outlines best practices in government contracting for IT goods and services and is available here:
https://www.saonm.org/media/uploads/IT_Transparency_Report_FY15-16_final.pdf