City previews future of new procurement portal

New York City’s new online procurement system, the Procurement and Sourcing Solutions Portal – or PASSPort – is already live and in the process of moving much of the nitty-gritty work of business with the city of New York online. But at City & State’s Government Procurement Conference on Thursday, Dan Symon, director of the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services, previewed what’s still to come for the system, including a way for anyone to track business opportunities with the city. “Not everything needs to be a form. Not everything needs to be a piece of paper,” Symon said of the PASSPort system streamlining the procurement process online.

Ivalua, the company that is building PASSPort, is not only working with New York City, but with Arizona on its procurement portal as well. On Thursday, Symon used Arizona’s searchable database as an example of an upcoming release of New York City’s system. Much of the information is available to the public without logging into an account, and is searchable by categories including date, commodity and agency. 

Ivalua, however, came under scrutiny earlier this year, when the Daily News reported findings from the Checks and Balances Project that the company’s contract with New York City has ballooned from $30.5 million to $46.9 million in the years since the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications first hired Ivalua. The city has defended the project as a success so far.

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