Matthew Hamilton in Capitol Confidential reports that a study by the state Authorities Budget Office found municipal industrial development agencies that employ competitive bidding procedures when selecting service contracts, incur lower project costs. That may not be be news to anyone except that in 2014, New York IDAs reported that only 32 percent of procurements used competitive bidding. In New York, 33 IDAs reported that they did not competitively select any contract procurements, while ten did. Other government agencies did a bit better: non-profits defined as local authorities reported a 73 percent competitively selected procurement rate, while state authorities reported 65 percent, and local authorities 57 percent. "Locally, the Rensselaer County IDA is among those that used a competitive selection process for its audit service contracts, resulting in a $203 cost per project for 60 projects. Compare that to the Albany County IDA, which did not use a competitive selection process, and incurred a $393 cost per project for 15 projects," Hamilton writes. Read the full story in Capitol Confidential, a Times-Union blog.

IDA Procurement Final Report by Matthew Hamilton