ABSTRACT
Acquiring technology solutions for public agency operations means dealing with government procurement and contracting processes. These are two of the most complex facets of modern public administration. The procurement and contracting process takes years of education and training to become a competent contracting officer whether at the federal, state, or local level of government. The chapter provides some general background on how the federal government, some of the states, and some local governments address issues of procurement and contracting. It provides a general conceptual background on procurement and contracting to provide a high level picture of the complexity of the matter. The chapter focuses on the landscape of procurement and contracting at the federal, state, and local levels of government to get a general sense of the types of laws and regulations that govern procurement and contracting. It presents a managerial perspective on technology acquisition is taken by describing the Software Acquisition Capability Maturity Model.
