Jesse Scheckner
Of the more than 240 contracts the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners (BCC) approved with private vendors in 2023, 1 in 5 (20%) were finalized without any competition.
Winners of the 49 no-bid deals OK’d received $420 million from county coffers — a sizable sum, but representing just 9% of the $4.27 billion paid out altogether last year.
That’s according to a new report Mayor Daniella Levine Cava gave Commissioners this month, which came in response to an ordinance by René García that the Board passed in September requiring the information every quarter.
The measure also required that the Mayor’s Office explain why each noncompetitive contract was approved and whether future contracts for similar services are anticipated to close out without a bidding process.
Miami Today first flagged the report Tuesday.
Levine Cava’s report featured analyses by the county’s Strategic Procurement Department, which also reviewed and projected noncompetitive awards for 2024 requiring BCC approval. Through early June, the Department said there were 27 such awards and modifications anticipated this year either as new contracts, replacement contracts or modifications to existing ones.
Among them: a $250 million contract for advanced Water and Sewer Department metering infrastructure, $80 million for local telecommunication services and $91.5 million for a curbside recycling collection program that the Mayor’s Office said was expected to be replaced by a competitively sourced vendor the next time around.
Altogether, Miami-Dade has 1,786 active contracts for outsourced goods and services worth a combined $20.9 billion. Of that total, 1,553 (88%) were established after a competitive bidding process and 215 (12%) were not. The competitive contracts total $19.86 billion (95%) compared to $1.04 billion (5%) noncompetitive.
The Mayor holds authority to approve noncompetitive contracts valued at $250,000 or less.
Levine Cava noted in her report that it is impossible for the Strategic Procurement Department to forecast the number of noncompetitive actions requested of the BCC with complete accuracy.
She also asked Commissioners to amend the ordinance so that future reports are due annually rather than quarterly.
