As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to help Saint Paul expand the pool of vendors that bid on street reconstruction contracts and improve vendor management during construction.

The City of Saint Paul faced several key challenges with their street reconstruction contracts. Vendor competition was low, and projects ran past agreed-upon budgets and timelines. With pro bono technical assistance from the GPL, the city conducted a vendor survey and implemented pre-bid meetings to improve vendor competition, streamlined project management responsibilities from design to construction completion, and created a dashboard to track vendor performance and enable real-time improvements. As a result, the city has seen a significant expansion of the vendor pool, and there are early indications of fewer contract amendments for recent projects. In addition, the Procurement Office has continued to foster a culture of continuous feedback by following up with vendors at the end of each project to understand strengths and opportunities for improving the procurement process.