Atlanta procurement leaders outline restructuring, training and tech plan and request roughly $5 million for FY26

ICPO Houston told the Finance Executive Committee that the Department of Procurement is restructuring to shorten procurement cycle times and return the office to core sourcing work, and asked for roughly $5 million in the FY26 operating budget.

Houston said the department is splitting into five teams — strategy, implementation, performance services, business operations and a matrix (agency-business-partner) team — so that sourcing strategy comes before solicitation and the implementation team can focus on execution. “Procurement really is a project and we have not been treating procurement as a project,” Houston said, adding that strategy has often occurred in the middle of the process rather than at the start.

The nut graf: leaders said the reorganization aims to reduce the department’s long solicitation cycle, improve supplier participation and strengthen contract tracking and post-award performance. Houston told committee members the office will also invest in software to automate project-management work, optimize Oracle where possible and roll out a contract management system.

In the body of the presentation, Houston listed the new directors the department has named: Regina Perry to lead strategy, Brandy Stanley as director of the implementation team, Melinda McLeodon to head performance services, and Shawanda Freeman leading business operations. Houston said the matrix team will act as business partners to user agencies and help clear “gaps and clogged up” processes.

Houston said the performance services team will provide data analysis, indexing of pricing where possible and post-award performance measurement. She said the department will resume surplus-goods activities required by the city code and will collaborate more with the Office of Contract Compliance (OCC) on supplier outreach to preserve competitive procurement processes.

On timelines and workload, Houston said the department’s average cycle time remains lengthy and reported: “we’re still very much at about 300 days.” She said the multi-pronged response will include simpler solicitation documents, moving some required forms (for example the IRIA form cited in the presentation) to later in the process, more use of requests for information (RFI) and benchmarking with other municipal procurement offices to compress cycle time.

On technology and training, Houston said the department will work with Deloitte and the city’s Application and Infrastructure Management (AIM) team to assess what automation can be added to Oracle and what supplemental tools are needed for project management. The department plans additional staff training in project and time management and to reclassify some roles: “category specialist” titles will be replaced by “project manager” and support roles by “business analyst.” Houston said some training may fall short of full professional certification because of cost, but the office intends to support staff progression toward certification.

On personnel and budget, Houston said the department currently shows 19 authorized FTEs in the document presented and that some positions shown as vacant were dormant or unfunded. She described recent separations tied to the restructuring and said those employees were at-will. On the budget request, Houston said the figure on the record as presented was “5 million,” and also stated the number on the slide; committee discussion clarified the office seeks approximately $5 million for FY26, with some of that increase reflecting returned funds from prior budgeting of the Moving Atlanta Forward bond and projected savings from the restructuring to be redirected for training and technology.

Council members pressed for targets and timelines. Houston said the work to validate scopes, hold pre-solicitation conferences and reduce the number of questions per solicitation should materially lower processing time; she identified documentation and mid-process strategy work as the chief causes of delay and said those will be addressed by the strategy and performance services teams. She also acknowledged outstanding obligations from recent office renovations.

The presentation included repeated commitments to collaborate with OCC on supplier outreach so procurement activity remains competitive and lawful, and to work with HR and organizational-development staff on messaging and training while restructuring continues.

The committee did not take a formal vote on the procurement budget or personnel changes during the presentation; members requested a deeper follow-up at the scheduled quarterly review in about three weeks.