{"id":650,"date":"2009-07-21T23:22:40","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T04:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/?p=650"},"modified":"2022-08-17T16:04:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T21:04:36","slug":"big-box-news-california-ohio-join-other-states-in-office-depot-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/big-box-news-california-ohio-join-other-states-in-office-depot-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Box News: California &#038; Ohio Join Other States in Office Depot investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthtimes.org\/articles\/show\/nopa-reports-california-amp-ohio,899487.shtml\">EarthTimes.org<\/a>, &#8220;Office Depot has disclosed on its <a href=\"https:\/\/cts.businesswire.com\/ct\/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Finvestor.officedepot.com%2Fphoenix.zhtml%3Fc%3D94746%26p%3Dirol-qapage&amp;esheet=6011867&amp;lan=en_US&amp;anchor=investor+website&amp;index=1\">investor       website<\/a> that the Attorneys General of California and Ohio have launched civil fraud investigations into its $700 million dollar \u201cU.S. Communities\u201d national contract that thousands of local governments, school districts and public institutions draw upon to purchase office and school supplies. California and Ohio join Colorado, Florida, Missouri and Texas in opening such investigations.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">According to today&#8217;s article, the National Office Products Alliance (NOPA) called upon the Office of the Attorney General of California to include in its investigation of Office Depot a thorough examination of the role played by the Walnut Creek, CA-based U.S. Communities organization which has allegedly received as much as $20 million in \u201ckickback\u201d payments from Office Depot for sponsoring the national contract now under investigation in six states. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">According to NOPA, the article states, these two new investigations (CA and OH) again highlight the inherent problems associated with reliance on a single office supplies contracts by government agencies at all levels. \u201cStrategic sole-source contracting has damaged competitive independent small businesses around the country, reducing vendor choice and raising prices for government customers,\u201d said Chris Bates, President of NOPA. \u201cThe idea that sole-source contracting offers a \u2018best value\u2019 proposition should be questioned by every federal, state and local government and institutional entity in light of the results from so many audits and investigations.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For more on this issue, find the full article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthtimes.org\/articles\/show\/nopa-reports-california-amp-ohio,899487.shtml\">here. <\/a><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to EarthTimes.org, Office Depot has disclosed on its investor website that the Attorneys General of California and Ohio have launched civil fraud investigations into its $700 million dollar \u201cU.S. Communities\u201d national contract that thousands of local governments, school districts and public institutions draw upon to purchase office and school supplies. California and Ohio join Colorado, Florida, Missouri and Texas in opening such investigations.<\/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-650","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\/650","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=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7370,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/7370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ontimesupplies.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}