Committee refers Montgomery County eProcurement project to reconciliation after procurement briefing

The Government Operations & Fiscal Policy Committee on June 8 heard staff from Montgomery County’s Office of Procurement describe work to implement recommendations from the county’s disparity study and the need for a new eProcurement system.

Dr. Torregas opened the item by pointing members to staff report materials and the recommended Office of Procurement budget of $6,796,756. Director Shetty told the committee the office has already begun implementing many disparity‑study recommendations, including a roughly 20% increase in outreach, and highlighted the practical challenge of capturing subcontractor data across all contracts. "Doing this in Excel would just be a task that, even if you did it, you probably couldn't organize it," Shetty said, arguing an electronic procurement solution would be necessary to manage and report the full subcontractor picture.

Shetty described the eProcurement rollout as a multi‑module implementation intended to replace manual tracking and to help the county gather subcontractor data beyond the minority subcontractors currently captured. Staff said some work recommended by the disparity study is already underway, but full capture and management of subcontractor records is not feasible without new software.

Given the county’s constrained FY26 budget outlook, the committee chair recommended placing the eProcurement item on the reconciliation list and bringing it to full council for further review rather than approving it outright at the committee level. The chair announced the GO Committee’s decision was unanimous to refer the eProcurement project to reconciliation for full‑council consideration.

Next steps: the project will be reviewed at full council as part of reconciliation. The committee did not vote on a funding appropriation in committee; the referral sends the item for fuller council consideration.