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Supervisors approve IT IGA tying county purchases to City of Mesa contract amid public concern about cloud hosting
Summary
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on May 7 approved an intergovernmental agreement allowing the county to tie certain IT purchases to a City of Mesa procurement contract, after staff said Mesa—s competitive procurement gives the county better pricing.
Maricopa County supervisors voted May 7 to approve an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) that lets the county tie certain information-technology purchases to a City of Mesa procurement contract, a step staff said secures competitive pricing. The vote followed public comments raising questions about whether Amazon Web Services would host county systems and whether the contracts were already in operation.
Procurement staff explained the contract is a City of Mesa-led procurement that multiple jurisdictions commonly tie into to obtain favorable pricing. County procurement said the Mesa contract, which previously set pricing for hardware and software purchases, expires in May 2025 and that the county seeks authority to use the successor City of Mesa contract rather than run a separate county procurement for the same goods.
Members of the public questioned the timing and transparency of the agreement, citing hyperlinks in the contract documents that reference Amazon Web Services as a hosting platform. County staff said they were not aware of AWS hosting in the county contract and that Mesa was the lead agency for the procurement process. Staff also confirmed the IGA authorizes up to $17 million in annual spending across the two vendors in the contract, but actual spending depends on departmental budgets.
Supervisor Lesko asked whether Mesa receives financial benefit from county purchases under the IGA; procurement staff said lead agencies may receive a nominal administrative fee but the competitive pricing more than offsets any fee. After brief discussion, the board voted unanimously to approve the IGA and tie county purchases to the City of Mesa contract.
