Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA)
The Western States Contracting Alliance (WSCA) is a branch of NASPO (the National Association of State Procurement Officials) and consists of NASPO purchasing directors of 15 Western states. WSCA was founded in 1993 to create the means and procedures by which representatives of participating states can be joining together in multi-State cooperative contracting.
This approach of WSCA helps the participating states to achieve efficient and cost-effective acquisition of quality services and products. Generally, individual member states will develop cooperative purchases and WSCA does not maintain lists of vendors.
The members of WSCA are the states’ central procurement officials that are heading the states’ central procurement organizations or an appointed designee for the states. The 15 Western states are Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Washington.
So NASPO (National Association of State Procurement Officials) has established another subsidiary entity, named WSCA-NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization, LLC, to manage the states’ cooperative purchasing activities on a national level. program. This entity was formed in October 2012 and started to do business in January 2013. WSCA (the Western States Contracting Alliance) has served as the main cooperative arm for NASPO purchases since 1993 and the organization has been encouraging, fostering, and guiding participating member states to work collaboratively to be able to effectively create real procurement
cooperatives.
WSCA-NASPO is representing a nationally-focused, unified cooperative purchasing effort to leverage the collective experience and expertise of member states withing NASPO and WSCA. One of the purposes is to streamline the demand of and within all 50 American states, D.C., and the 5 organized territories. Within the entire nation, eligible entities and political subdivisions are encouraged to spur innovation and enhance competition in the (inter)national marketplace.
All American authorized governmental entities are invited to use cooperative contracts of WSCA-NASPO with that state’s Chief Procurement Official approval. The process of cooperative purchasing is sure to benefit states, counties, cities, institutions of higher education, public schools, as well as other eligible entities. The following organizations and agencies are authorized to use WSCA-NASPO resources and purchase services or goods:
The contract may be used by State Agencies and organizations, Political Subdivisions, Qualifying Nonprofit Organizations, Government Materials Management Centers, Participating Colleges, Universities, and Community and Technical Colleges. Purchasing state agencies or local political subdivisions can issue any purchase order to vendors, including WSCA Contract vendors, to meet their service and/or products needs while vendors can opt for accepting and processing the orders.
States, state agencies, and local, authorized political subdivisions such as counties, cities, and towns, can opt for setting up a “Participating Addendum” with any WSCA Contract vendor in order to ensure that purchases from those vendors meet the purchasing requirements of those entities.