By Caleb Taylor
How can Arkansas counties and school districts improve their procurement transparency?
In their latest research, “Arkansas Policy Recommendations: Procurement Transparency,” ACRE Policy Analysts Joyce Ajayi and Dr. Mavuto Kalulu discuss how counties and school districts can improve the web transparency of their finances.
Ajayi and Kalulu begin by noting that “Arkansas has no law that requires school districts and counties to publish bids and bid outcomes online.”
Ajayi and Kalulu write:
In addition, these entities are not required to maintain an online archive for residents to see the bidders, bid winners, and bid amounts. This lack of transparency may encourage corruption.”
Legislators should pass a law requiring Arkansas counties and school districts to post more procurement information online, according to Ajayi and Kalulu.
Ajayi and Kalulu recommend the following procurement information be posted online:
- Current requests for proposals (RFPs)
- Archived RFPs
- Current bidders
- Archived bidders
- Current bid amounts, or at least the range of the bid amounts
- Archived bid amounts, or at least the range of the bid amounts
- Current bid winners
- Archived bid winners
- Current winning bid amounts
- Archived winning bid amounts
You can read the rest of the report here.
You can read the entire third edition of “Access Arkansas: County Web Transparency” by Ajayi and Kalulu here.
For more of our research on transparency, go here.