As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Little Rock adopt results-driven contracting strategies across its entire procurement portfolio, improving consistency, vendor management, and data usage throughout the City.

Little Rock aimed to reform its entire procurement portfolio and to improve the city’s procurement process. With pro-bono technical assistance from the GPL, a new outcomes-focused procurement template was designed based on in-depth interviews, and a vendor performance review form was created to better track vendor performance. Little Rock has transitioned 100 percent of their procurements to the outcomes-focused template, and regularly uses the performance review form to discuss project progress with vendors. As a result, there has been a decrease in re-procurements and change orders, increased cost control, and poor performing vendors are beginning to be replaced. Furthermore, the city has created a cross-departmental Procurement Task Force to review existing procurement policy and make recommendations for changes based on best practices and the work done with the lab.