Information Technology Procurement Bids in California

Information Technology procurement in California

California government IT procurement runs through the California Department of Technology (CDT) for statewide contracts, with individual agencies handling agency-specific IT (Franchise Tax Board, DMV, Employment Development Department, Department of Health Care Services for Medi-Cal IT). The UC system (10 campuses + medical centers) and CSU system (23 campuses) each run largely independent IT procurement, often through UC/CSU joint contracts negotiated by UCOP or CSU CO. LA County, San Diego County, and San Francisco all have significant standalone IT procurement.

The largest active procurement is Medi-Cal IT modernization (CA-MMIS): a multi-billion-dollar multi-year replacement of the state Medicaid claims/eligibility systems. Franchise Tax Board runs the Enterprise Data to Revenue (EDR) II modernization, another multi-year, multi-hundred-million-dollar effort. CalTrans IT capital spend is substantial (transportation management systems, connected-vehicle pilots). LA County IT runs a $200M+ annual IT budget with heavy managed-services spend.

California IT vendor pathways: California Multiple Award Schedules (CMAS) is the primary vehicle — vendors qualify once for a broad category and agencies task-order against CMAS. Getting on CMAS is faster than individual agency competition. CDT also runs a Statewide Enterprise Cloud (SEC) framework and IT Master Services Agreement (MSA) programs. Small business set-aside preferences: California SB (Small Business) certification produces a 5% bid preference on state contracts; DVBE (Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise) participation is targeted at 3% statewide.