Tag Archives: NASPO ValuePoint

Top 7 State and Local Contract Vehicles to Support Your SLG Fiscal Year Requirements

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As we approach the end of the fiscal year, state and local governments and higher education institutions are ramping up purchasing to ensure every allocated budget dollar is spent and prepare their organizations for further IT advancements in the coming year. Leveraging the right contract vehicles can streamline procurement processes, ensuring timely and efficient acquisition of necessary technologies and services. These contracts can also provide technology vendors and resellers unique opportunities to expand their public sector businesses.

Below, we explore the top contract vehicles that state and local governments (SLG) and education institutions (EDU) are using as they close out their fiscal year with their preferred reseller partner this month.

1. NASPO ValuePoint

Carahsoft SLG EDU FYE Contracts Blog Preview Image 2024

NASPO ValuePoint is the cooperative purchasing arm of the National Association for State Procurement Officials, designed to provide access to the best possible IT solutions. It is considered to be the nation’s most significant public contracting cooperative. The contract offers a wide variety of technology solutions, including IaaS, PaaS & SaaS.

Carahsoft’s Contract: NASPO ValuePoint contract #AR2472 includes dozens of technology vendors.

Who Can Use It: State and local governments, municipalities, and public education entities (K-12 & Higher-Education.

2. GSA Cooperative Purchasing Program

The General Services Administration (GSA) Cooperative Purchasing Program grants state and local government entities access to federal GSA Schedule contracts, which are exclusively IT solutions and professional services. The GSA Cooperative Purchasing Program provides a streamlined procurement process for state and local governments to purchase IT solutions, often with pre-negotiated and cost-effective pricing structures.

Carahsoft’s Contract: GSA Schedule #47QSWA18D008F, aggregates solutions from many technology vendors.

Who Can Use It: State and local governments.

3. Texas Department of Information Resources (TX DIR)

The Texas Department of Information Resources (TX DIR) has established a Cooperative Contracts Purchasing Program which offers a wide range of product offerings, services and technology solutions to customers in Texas and nationwide. Public entities outside of Texas are also welcome to purchase through DIR contracts. The DIR contracts provide customers with streamlined procurement as all of the preliminary procurement work is done. TX DIR contracts offer a wide range of technologies including hardware, software, cloud, and professional IT services.

Carahsoft Contract: Carahsoft holds six TX DIR contracts, offering a wide variety of products and services from hundreds of technology vendors.

Who Can Use It: State and local governments, public education and other public entities nationwide.

4. California Software Licensing Program (CA SLP)

The California Software Licensing Program (CA SLP), established in 1994 and administered by the Department of General Services’ Procurement Division provides state and local government entities within the state of California with access to discounted software licensing agreements. This contract expedites and simplifies the procurement process while supporting state government modernization goals with a host of technology solutions.

Carahsoft Contract: Carahsoft holds 11 CA SLP contracts, offering solutions ranging from data management to cybersecurity and more.

Who Can Use It: State and local government agencies in California.

5. E&I Cooperative Services

E&I Cooperative Services is the largest and most experienced member-owned, non-profit purchasing cooperative focused on education. E&I provides education institutions with access to IT products and services, including learning management systems, classroom technologies and administrative software tailored to their unique needs.

Carahsoft Contract: E&I Cooperative Services contract #EI00063-2021MA provides E&I members with cloud and managed service solutions, and related IT products and services.

Who Can Use It: Educational institutions, including K-12 schools and higher education.

6. OMNIA Partners Public Sector

OMNIA Partners is one of the largest public sector cooperative purchasing organizations, providing comprehensive access to a wide variety of technology contracts across hardware, software and cloud solutions. The cooperative purchasing program is focused on efficiency, compliance and value, aiming to further streamline the procurement process for the public sector entities that leverage this contract.

Carahsoft Contract: Carahsoft’s contract with OMNIA Partners, #R191902, provides state and local governments and education institutions with access to technology from over 150 vendors, addressing the IT needs for all OMNIA Partners participants.

Who Can Use It: State and local governments, public education institutions, and nonprofits.

7. The Quilt

The Quilt is a national coalition of advanced regional networks for research and education, providing members with access to IT services and technologies. The Quilt provides access to technologies that meet the specific needs of educational and research communities, offering high-performance computing, research networking and related IT services to hundreds of universities and thousands of other education institutions.

Carahsoft Contract: MSA – 05012019F, offers members with access to networking, cloud infrastructure, data management, cybersecurity, virtualization and enterprise technologies.

Who Can Use It: Higher education institutions, research institutions, and related organizations.

By turning to these popular contract vehicles, state and local governments and educational institutions can easily find and purchase the technologies that map to their modernization efforts while ensuring compliance and maximizing investments through their preferred resellers. As the fiscal year draws to a close, these contracts serve as a vital resource for timely and cost-effective procurement, driving end-of-year business to new heights and propelling public sector advancements.

For more information on Carahsoft’s contracts across each of these contract vehicles, please reach out to contracts@carahsoft.com.

Count on Carahsoft: IT Procurement for Government Blog Series: Procuring with NASPO ValuePoint

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NASPO Valuepoint is a contract primarily available for state and local government and education entities around the country. While not being a public sector organization, but rather a nonprofit organization working uniquely to support the member states of NASPO (National Association of State Procurement Officials). NASPO Valuepoint focuses on putting out different proposal requests for various contract scopes to meet members’ needs. For example, if NASPO determines that there is a need for automobiles or automobile parts, they put out a proposal request on their contract and then they have manufacturers and contractors for automobile parts respond to that proposal.

That is how Carahsoft became involved; in 2015 we responded to a proposal request for a cloud solutions contract under NASPO and were awarded the contract for 2016 through 2026.

FFYE Blog Series NASPO ValuePoint Blog ImageState Procurement Process for NASPO

NASPO puts together an all-encompassing master agreement that serves as the contractor’s base contract. Then individual state procurement offices work one-on-one with Carahsoft to write smaller contracts, called a Participating Addenda (PA), that allow the states to access Carahsoft’s master cloud solutions agreement with NASPO at any point during the contract. Carahsoft has participating addenda with 37 states, more than any other contractor in the cloud solutions category.

This opt-in process benefits the state because they can augment the master agreement with their own relevant terms and conditions, pricing arrangements, availability of product, and other terms that might be relevant to them. A state could say: “In our state, here’s how we do termination for convenience” and customize their own terms and conditions within the participating addendum. For example, Georgia has their own procurement manual, their own procurement code, and specific ways things operate.  They don’t have to participate to the exact set of rules that are set down within the master agreement. They can take that baseline of rules and customize them.

The ability to leverage an existing contract is a big advantage to these customers. Many state purchasing organizations have limited resources, so they can leverage a competition that’s already being conducted by NASPO and use that as a baseline in their procurement. It allows them a higher level of efficiency.

Benefits of Purchasing Under a State Procurement Contract

Convenience for States: NASPO gives state purchasing entities a pre-negotiated contract to leverage for cloud solutions. Otherwise, state governments would need to start contracts from scratch, a process that could take months. Cloud solutions have a  focused scope, and purchasing entities may struggle to completely address the specifics of SaaS and in-cloud solution contracts. This type of agreement is effective in that it provides a framework that already addresses most requirements that customers may leverage as opposed to starting their own brand new contract.

Updating: From our vendor partners on a rolling, monthly basis, including any new products, technology features, pricing information, or other terms. In addition, it allows new terms and conditions if some of our vendor partners want to include their updated versions.

Vendor Partners: Carahsoft can also add new technology partners such as vendors or resellers very easily. We can use our partner network as part of our NASPO contract by getting them approved on a monthly basis. They can leverage our contract just like we would as they source the technology solutions that are available on NASPO through Carahsoft.

NIST Framework: NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) standards are leveraged in a variety of ways by state and federal governments, industry, etc. For example, they have a baseline definition for a cloud service.  States have confidence that a product or service that is available on a NASPO contract meets these NIST standards as being a cloud service; this gives them confidence to understand what they are purchasing through the contract.

The NIST model framework that NASPO adheres to is largely part of the contract scope. Everything that is included in the NASPO model is “something as-a-service.” The three models followed by this NIST framework are software, platform, or infrastructure as-a-service. If it is one of those solution capabilities, then it can be eligible to be approved for NASPO.

Count on Carahsoft and our reseller partners to deliver and implement cutting-edge cloud solutions and services at the best value. Request a Quote Today and start the conversation with our team on how we can assist you this federal fiscal year-end.