{"id":399,"date":"2009-04-02T19:07:53","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T00:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/?p=399"},"modified":"2022-08-17T16:04:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T21:04:26","slug":"nopa-urges-governments-to-end-sole-source-contracting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/nopa-urges-governments-to-end-sole-source-contracting\/","title":{"rendered":"NOPA Urges Governments to End Sole-Source Contracting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In light of recent allegations of big-box retailers abusing their stranglehold on government contracts, the National Office Products Alliance (NOPA) has put out a statement calling for an end to single-source contracts with state and local governments. The statement was triggered by an announcement to local government customers that, effective approximately March 30, nationwide pricing of office products under the &#8220;U.S. Communities&#8221; contract would be changed across-the-board without input from local government customers. According to the NOPA press release:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>NOPA contends that more competition is essential at the local government and school district levels to ensure consistent delivery of &#8220;best value&#8221; and help government customers avoid the need for costly, time-consuming and sometimes embarrassing audits of their office product purchases. &#8220;Regrettably, such competition has been lacking and the growing number of public audit findings indicating non-compliance with contract pricing and product purchasing requirements should be a major concern,&#8221; said Chris Bates, president of NOPA. &#8220;In several cases, state and local governments have been refunded public funds that their audits determined were due.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This sort of day-to-day competition would not only close the door on single companies that seek to abuse their contracts, but open a new one for smaller, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\">independent retailers<\/a> to get their products in the hands of those who need them. More competition leads to better value for the buyer, and more opportunities for the seller. It&#8217;s a win-win situation, and one that&#8217;s been a long time coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In light of recent allegations of big-box retailers abusing their stranglehold on government contracts, the National Office Products Alliance (NOPA) has put out a statement calling for an end to single-source contracts with state and local governments. The statement was triggered by an announcement to local government customers that, effective approximately March 30, nationwide pricing of office products under the &#8220;U.S. Communities&#8221; contract would be changed across-the-board without input from local government customers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[133,11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-box-news","category-government-purchasing","category-resources"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7412,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399\/revisions\/7412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}