Smart Spending: The Best for Less

The Texas Comptroller’s office works to ensure that state government obtains the best possible products and services for the best price, and helps local governments achieve similar benefits.
To further this mission, our office offers a series of tools that make government purchasing more cost-effective and user-friendly than ever before.

The Comptroller’s Texas Procurement and Support Services Cooperative Purchasing Program (State of Texas CO-OP) administers more than 200 statewide contracts and procurement schedules offering thousands of products and services. Vendors bid to be part of the state contracting program, setting competitive prices and negotiating customer-service contracts and specifications with state purchasers. State agencies and any local government that joins State of Texas CO-OP can take advantage of these contracts to obtain the goods they need, quickly and economically.

A related service, TxSmartBuy.com, is an online shopping cart for state agencies and local governments that want to benefit from the state’s hefty negotiating power. It lets users browse and buy a wide variety of goods and services, from office supplies to fleet vehicles. Since TxSmartBuy was first launched in August 2009, the agency has processed more than $1 billion in online orders through the system.

The agency also processes open-market requisitions (including school buses) on behalf of state agencies and CO-OP members; provides information and customer service for statewide purchasing; and manages the statewide purchasing system and the Electronic State Business Daily, which publicizes participants’ solicitations to increase vendor participation and provide public notice of awards.

The Purchasing Numbers:

The Comptroller maintains more than 200 contracts used by 221 state agencies and 1,900 State of Texas CO-OP members, processing $563 million in orders in fiscal 2011.