County Executive Rob Astorino announced on Wednesday a major improvement to the county contracting process: a new web-based system that will reduce from hours to minutes the time it takes to submit contracts to the county. The new contract management system, whose first launch will be to nonprofits, will also benefit the environment by greatly reducing the county's requirements for paper documents.

"Every day my administration looks for opportunities to make county government work more efficiently and effectively for the taxpayer," said Astorino. "Utilizing technology to simplify the county contracting system saves time, money and helps the environment. For nonprofits doing business with the county, every dollar and hour saved can be put toward doing what they do best – serving our residents and improving the quality of life in Westchester."

In conjunction with the announcement, Astorino released a video touting the benefits of the new system. View the video.

A live demonstration of the new system was given at an event Thursday sponsored by Nonprofit Westchester. Featured speakers included County Executive Astorino's newly appointed nonprofit liaison, Joseph Kenner (also the Department of Social Services Deputy Commissioner), who talked about the new online system and other ways in which the county is collaborating with the nonprofit community. In addition, Local Development Corporation Executive Director Jim Coleman spoke about how to obtain low-cost, tax-exempt bond financing.

As part of the county executive's commitment to preserving essential services for residents, the contract reform initiative is a result of the collaboration between various county departments and representatives from the nonprofit sector.

"Nonprofits such as Family Services of Westchester have contracts with multiple county departments. The process has been time consuming and expensive," said Susan Wayne, president and CEO of Family Services of Westchester, Inc. "The nonprofit community asked for the process to be streamlined, and the county executive listened. We are thrilled with the result."

The automated vendor portal will be phased in over five stages. The first stage, the vendor document repository, was made available this week to nearly two hundred nonprofits that have contracts with the county. The repository provides a safe and secure platform to store documents, using cloud-based technology and a user-friendly interface. Nonprofit vendors can upload and save scanned images of required supporting documents, and then link them to the appropriate county contract. The system significantly reduces the amount of paper being mailed between nonprofit vendors and the county, and saves the county an estimated $1,000 per contract.

"As Nonprofit Westchester's recent Economic Impact Study demonstrated, nonprofit organizations are a significant contributor to Westchester County's economy," said Nonprofit Westchester executive director Joanna Straub. "We are pleased to see the county's efforts to streamline the contracting process, which will help more resources go towards where they are needed the most - to the people we serve, rather than into onerous administrative processes."

The next four stages, or modules, of the system are in the testing and development stage and will be released later this year. They include:

• Contract budget module, which will allow vendors to create budgets in support of proposals submitted in response to a request for proposal (RFP) posted by a county department,
• Claim module, which will allow vendors to submit invoices online as they provide services against an executed contract,
• Performance reporting module, which will allow vendors to report information related to the services provided under each contract, such as the number of residents served, success rates or other pertinent information based on the requirements of the contracts.
• Program integrity module, which will examine payments made to each agency across all of their county contracts to determine whether agencies are receiving appropriate payments within the terms of their contracts and are in compliance with both state and federal guidelines.

Go to the vendor portal and user guide.

The county plans to explore making the portal technology available to for-profit vendors, in order to further reduce taxpayer costs and to convey a more business-friendly environment.

The vendor portal is the county executive's latest initiative to provide support to the county's nonprofit community. In 2012, the county executive established the Local Development Corporation (LDC) which provides low-cost, tax-exempt bond financing to non-profit organizations at no financial risk to county taxpayers. To date, the LDC has leveraged $429 million in investments to Westchester nonprofits helping six of the county's largest hospitals and universities reduce their financing costs, expand their facilities and create more than 1,400 new jobs.