Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
State OMB outlines ND Buys rollout and IT procurement fixes to cut delays
Loading...
Summary
OMB and NDIT officials told the Task Force on Government Efficiency that a new procurement automation system (ND Buys) and an OMB–NDIT action plan aim to reduce duplicated reviews, clarify roles and shorten IT procurement timelines; pilots start Dec. 15 and full transition is planned by April.
Sherry Neese, Director of Shared Services and State Procurement Manager with the Office of Management and Budget, told the task force the state is replacing its aging procurement website with an enterprise system that will host a bidders list, solicitation module and the first enterprise contract-administration module. "That system goes live on December 15," Neese said, adding the goal is to provide statewide visibility and to standardize solicitation and contract records.
Neese said the replacement — implemented using a cooperative purchasing vehicle and a third-party solution (iValua, implemented by KPMG) — grew from a 2003-era in‑house platform and a 2024 decision that PeopleSoft could not meet current needs. The project’s initial budget was roughly $2.0 million with later additions, she said, putting current funding around $2.6 million.
The nut of the presentation was a diagnosis of how procurement and IT reviews can lengthen timelines. Neese emphasized procurement fundamentals — competition, transparency and ethics — and said the new system is designed to automate manual steps and capture data OMB needs to spot enterprise reuse opportunities. "Procurement is the best fair way to gather that information, make good purchasing decisions," she said.
OMB summarized a short IT-procurement survey it ran with NDIT and the North Dakota University System. Officials said 118 responses showed repeated problems: misaligned OMB–NDIT processes, unclear roles and timelines, inconsistent guidance during reviews and long turnaround times for initiative intake, IT review and contract renewals. Respondents asked for clearer onboarding, step‑by‑step workflows and parallel processing where possible to avoid sequential bottlenecks.
As a response, OMB and NDIT presented a seven‑point action plan: review and improve IT procurement processes, publish guidance and statute references, create a feedback mechanism for agencies and vendors, release streamlined IT RFP templates (Neese said those will be issued in December), develop executive orientation and provide IT‑procurement training for agencies in 2026. Neese told the committee the law changes in 2023 and 2025 had already simplified some requirements, including raising certain thresholds and clarifying the major‑IT process.
Corey Mach, the state chief information officer at NDIT, described the initiative intake “front door” that routes new IT proposals to the correct reviewers and the steering committee that prioritizes projects by readiness and impact. Mach said the legislative‑priority projects can be expedited when stakeholders — agency leadership, the governor’s office and the legislature — align on urgency, but he warned that capacity and resource constraints mean not every request can be moved immediately.
Mach also described why small, ad hoc purchases can become major headaches: a click‑through application or a low‑dollar piece of software may appear harmless until IT review raises security, third‑party risk or contract issues that require vendor questionnaires and legal negotiation. "A thorough, complete IT review is generally going to take about a month," Mach said; items that require vendor follow‑up can take much longer if vendors do not respond promptly.
On the procurement automation rollout, Neese said the system currently is required for formal (level‑3) solicitations and the plan is to encourage broader agency adoption. Pilots are slated to begin Dec. 15 with a goal of retiring the old system by April. The procurement office said the new system will include login/security features, evaluation configuration for informal RFPs, and contract management capabilities intended to centralize documentation historically lost to decentralized processes.
The presentation closed with OMB committing to monthly OMB–NDIT liaison meetings and continued follow‑up with agencies that volunteered to pilot changes. The task force scheduled further discussion of dashboards and IT oversight later in the agenda. The committee approved the Oct. 16 minutes at the meeting before the presentations.
