Government Contracts

Maryland Governor Hogan issued Executive Order 01.01.2016.05 establishing a Commission to study and make recommendations for modernizing Maryland State procurements. The Commission’s December 1, 2016 report included 57 recommendations spanning several issue areas within the State’s procurement apparatus. Among the recommended changes are several that will streamline and enhance the Maryland procurement process, hopefully increasing the appeal of doing State of Maryland business for contractors of all sizes.

Standardized Request for Proposal (“RFP”) Template

The Commission recommends the State create one standardized RFP template across all agencies. Specific exhibits could be tailored for acquiring services, information technology, construction, or other items. Further, emphasis will be placed on procurement officers making a “conscious decision” as to contract clauses needed to be included with a particular emphasis on limitations of liability, intellectual property, indemnification, and other key provisions. This may decrease the risk to contractors being tied to contract provisions that are inappropriate for the type of work they are performing for the State.

Single Procurement Communications Portal

The report recommends use of a single procurement communications portal rather than the current hodgepodge of several different agency websites. Fortunately, this recommendation has already been implemented. On December 1, 2016 procurement.maryland.gov launched. This portal will aid in developing consistency in the format of procurement homepages for various state agencies. The State will also draft a Maryland Procurement Manual to outline a new streamlined procurement process and make available a State procurement customer services “concierge” through the portal, to answer questions and direct bidders to the appropriate part of the website.

Purchase of a Contract Management System

Maryland intends to purchase a contract management system and deploy it for all state agencies. The system will facilitate more effective monitoring by contract managers, invoice tracking, reporting, and other functions. The system is also intended to reduce administrative errors, late payments, delayed contract extensions, and other performance issues.

Expansion of the Small Business Reserve Program

Maryland’s Small Business Reserve (“SBR”) Program provides for a set-aside marketplace allowing small businesses to compete only against each other. Once a procurement is set-aside for small businesses, the agency may only award that contact to a registered small business. Currently, Maryland conducts its SBR program with 23 state agencies. The Commission recommends expanding it to an additional 31 agencies. The Commission also advocates increasing the SBR Program statewide goal from 10% to 15%. It is likely that the report will lead Maryland to significantly increase its small business contracting program going forward.

Changes to Protest Process

As part of its recommended procurement overhaul, the report advocates common sense changes to the State’s protest process. There should be an increase in time for filing bid protests from seven calendar days to ten, allowing bidders more time to consider and prepare protests. Additionally, the report recommends that the State agency must file and produce to the protester an Agency Report within 15 days after a protest to the Maryland State Board of Contract Appeals. Previously this time period was permissive, permitting the agency to potentially drag out the protest process. This change is designed to ensure that protests are resolved more expeditiously, a benefit to both the state agency and protestor.

Miles & Stockbridge's Government Contracts lawyers have decades of experience helping clients with state and local procurements in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C

This alert was written by Alfred M. Wurglitz and Donald E. English, Jr., principals at Miles & Stockbridge.

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