How Government Agencies Can Make Purchases Without Issuing Their Own RFP
Government agencies often spend months preparing requests for proposals (RFPs) for major purchases. The process involves defining requirements, drafting specifications, advertising opportunities, evaluating vendors, and awarding contracts. However, agencies may use existing competitively awarded contracts through cooperative purchasing, shortening procurement timelines while meeting applicable purchasing requirements.
Cooperative purchasing allows public agencies to buy goods and services through contracts awarded by another government entity. Organizations such as Sourcewell provide access to competitively solicited contracts covering technology, equipment, construction, and other categories. Agencies can review available suppliers, pricing, contract terms, and solicitation documents without conducting a separate RFP. Combined purchasing volumes may also provide access to more competitive pricing.
Before using a cooperative contract, agencies must verify that state laws, local procurement policies, and funding requirements permit its use. Procurement teams should review contract documentation, confirm approval thresholds, obtain supplier quotes, and maintain records for auditing. Purchases funded through federal grants may require additional compliance checks. Evaluating cooperative contracts before issuing a new solicitation can help agencies reduce administrative work, speed up purchases, and maintain procurement accountability.
Free Cybersecurity Assessments and Exercises for State and Local Governments
Fractional Source and Sourcewell Ventures are expanding their cybersecurity pilot to state and local governments, offering free assessments and exercises to help agencies prepare for cyber incidents.
Community Spotlight: Mayor Nick Derzis, Hoover: Rebuilding Cyber Readiness
Nick Derzis took office as mayor of Hoover, Alabama, on November 3, 2025. He defeated incumbent Frank Brocato in the August 26, 2025 election with 9,676 votes to 7,749, or 56% of the total. The 2020 census recorded 92,606 residents in Hoover, Alabama's sixth-largest city, which spans Jefferson and Shelby counties.
Derzis was born in Berlin, Germany, to a U.S. Army colonel and spent part of his youth in Arlington, Virginia, before moving to Alabama. He earned a bachelorʼs degree in criminal justice from Samford University while working in law enforcement. He graduated from the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
He joined the Hoover Police Department in 1979 as a patrol officer. He served as the departmentʼs first public information officer and started its first neighborhood watch program. He became assistant chief in December 1999 and chief in January 2005, a post he held until 2025. As chief, he oversaw the school resource officer program, specialized units including the bomb squad and canine unit, and national accreditation through CALEA.
His campaign centered on transparency, fiscal responsibility, and economic development. At his swearing-in, he named public safety, transparency, and stronger accountability between city leaders and residents as his priorities.
In October 2026, Derzis disclosed that the city had received an IT assessment from Kroll Associates in July 2024 that was not shared during the mayoral transition. The report was one of two commissioned under the previous administration. Derzis said neither he, his transition team, nor the City Council knew it existed.
The IT assessment examined 16 areas of the cityʼs technology operations. It found gaps in protections for government information, including the ability to recover missing records and maintain essential operations during a cyber incident or emergency. Its recommendations included cyberattack response procedures, disaster recovery plans, and tighter access controls on financial software.
The companion forensic accounting review covered October 2020 through
September 2023. It found no specific evidence of fraud or misuse of public funds. It did identify weaknesses in financial controls, recordkeeping, and departmental oversight.
The city is buying more than $600,000 in technology equipment and has begun reviewing its operations. It has formed a partnership with Auburn Universityʼs McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security to develop a response to potential cyber threats. Chief Financial Officer Melinda Lopez is reviewing finance operations to strengthen controls and set consistent procedures.
In September 2026, the City Council authorized Derzis and Council President Casey Middlebrooks to request a state review of open questions about prior-year receipts and expenditures. Alabama Chief Examiner Rachel Riddle reported that the review found no new information suggesting fraud or mismanagement that would warrant an audit. Derzis said the city must correct the deficiencies and put safeguards in place to protect residents, their tax dollars, and essential services.
QUICK HIT NEWS
Election offices are treating cybersecurity as a year-round responsibility, covering voter registration, ballot processing, and election worker systems. Multnomah County, Oregon, which had 592,000 registered voters as of October 23, reported no election cybersecurity incidents and limits email access to about 2% of its on-call workers. The Ohio Secretary of Stateʼs Office requires phishing training across 88 counties. It runs a cyber defense team with four regional liaisons that aims to respond to major incidents within an hour. Offices keep paper poll books, provisional ballots, and paper ballot records as fallbacks if systems fail.
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Orangeburg, South Carolina, are using GIS to manage the utilities they own. Chambersburg, a borough of about 23,400 residents that runs electric, water, gas, sewer, trash, and parking services, moved its Esri data from the cloud to its own servers in August. Field staff can select a utility pole on a map to see its age, height, and transformer type, and officials plan to extend the system to gas, water, and sewer.
Connecticut will launch Mobile ID, a free app that holds a digital driverʼs license or state ID, on November 18. Residents need their physical card to complete setup and should keep it with them, since the digital version isn't accepted everywhere. TSA will accept it at participating checkpoints, including Bradley International and Tweed New Haven airports, but law enforcement will not accept it in place of a physical license. Businesses are not required to accept it, and they need a compatible verification app. The Department of Consumer Protection will share guidance with them over the next month.
UMass Lowell opened a cybersecurity operations center to support local governments, businesses, nonprofits, and small and midsize defense companies. A $300,000 grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborativeʼs MassCyberCenter and the Center for Advanced Manufacturing funded the center, with support from Science Applications International Corporation. It is the fifth such center in Massachusetts, and five students were interning there at the opening.
FOR THE COMMUTE
How a registry helped Minnesota reach functional zero in veteran homelessness (Priorities Podcast)
Paul Williams, deputy director of veterans programs at the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs, and Andrew Garvais, director of veterans programs and benefits, discuss how the stateʼs Homeless Veteran Registry helped Minnesota reach functional zero in veteran homelessness. Functional zero means homelessness among veterans is rare, brief, and nonrecurring. The registry identifies veterans experiencing homelessness and connects them to housing and services. A 2010 statewide count found more than 600 veterans without housing, and about 150 were on the registry when Gov. Tim Walz announced the milestone in October.
RESOURCES & EVENTS
📅 How AI Is Reshaping Public Service (Virtual - November 9, 2026)
This webinar will examine how AI can change the way residents interact with government and how public servants turn information into trusted action. Mark Hynes, chief executive officer of Granicus, will join Rob Lloyd, executive director of the Center for Digital Government, to discuss shifting resident expectations and why digital government should be organized around outcomes. The session will also cover what leaders should prioritize as AI becomes part of service delivery. Details →
📅 Texas Higher Education IT Leadership Summit (Austin, TX - December 15, 2026)
This summit will bring together CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, and senior IT leaders from Texas higher education institutions at the University of Texas at Austin. Lin Zhou, chief information officer of Texas Tech University, will deliver the keynote. Sessions will cover AI governance, ERP modernization, setting IT priorities with limited budgets and staff, and workforce change, along with a cybersecurity tabletop exercise in which an AI tool and an enterprise system are both at risk. Attendance is free for higher education institutions. Details →
📊 Report Spotlight: Closing the Exposure Gap (Tanium)
This paper examines why government IT teams struggle to fix vulnerabilities. More than half of government organizations have critical security flaws that have gone unresolved for more than a year. The paper traces the gap to manual patching, separate security and IT workflows, inaccurate asset inventories, and divided IT and operational technology environments. It outlines four areas for faster remediation: autonomous exposure management, patch management, security operations, and IT and OT operations, all built on real-time endpoint data.
INSIGHT OF THE WEEK
A House bill would let the governors of 10 Missouri River basin states block any study or construction of a project that moves the riverʼs water outside the basin. The provision is in the House version of the Water Resources Development Act, which passed 415 to 9, but the Senate version omits it. Governors of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah wrote in opposition, saying it would give each governor veto power over even studying projects in a basin of 530,000 square miles. Downstream supporters argue the states should manage the resource together as drought pushes Western states to look at pipelines from the river.
