IT Services Cooperative

Overview

CRCOG’s IT Shared Services Program is a municipal purchasing program that make technology services and related products more accessible, efficient, and affordable to municipalities.

By piggybacking on state-approved, competitively priced contracts vetted through CRCOG, municipalities and public organizations can procure expanded offerings, often resulting in significant cost savings.

Members can access these services through CRCOG, the Capital Region Purchasing Council (CRPC), and/or the CT Council of Small Towns (COST).

Contact for additional information or to join:
Principal Program Manager
Robyn Nichols
860-724-4222

Current Programs

Available to all CT Municipalities.

Through a competitive bidding process, CRCOG provides municipalities and the communities they serve access to fully automated, online, cloud-computing online permitting technology. The CRCOG Regional Online Permitting Program, in conjunction with ViewPoint Cloud and Municity Software, offer transparent application processes, user-friendly interfaces, and cost savings, organizing, streamlining, and tracking permitting operations and facilitating collaborations between departments by centralizing and automating workflows.

ViewPoint Cloud Contact Information, Carl Anderson, Senior Municipal Relationship Manager, 617-577-9000 ext. 107
Munity Contact Information, Bruce Cadman, Account Executive, 855-436-2633

CRCOG Staff recently issued and RFI for Time and Attendance Software. More details will be posted when they are available.

Through a competitive bidding process, CRCOG contracts to provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services for advanced telecommunications allowing users to make/receive calls over the Internet.  Offering significant cost savings, flexibility and scalable advanced calling features, such as web and video conferencing, hot desking, “find me, follow me” and more, CRCOG provides these services to municipalities, schools, public libraries and governmental entities through competitive contracts with IP Genie and Mitel.

Learn More

IP Genie Contact InformationGeorge Taylor, President, 860-610-6006
Mitel Contact Information, Stephen Ratcliffe, Vice President (Intellinet), 860-606-1840 

With security threats on the rise, how sure are you that your municipality is protected?  Go from risk to resiliency with pre-negotiated pricing, infrastructure services and products provided through Novus Insight.  Transform your organization, drive growth, increase efficiency, and improve resiliency to prepare for the unexpected. Novus Insight can assess cybersecurity deficiencies, draft, and implement a Plan of Action, maintain, and monitor your network, train staff, and provide security risk assessments.

CRCOG has contracted with Sertex Broadband to provide leading-edge network infrastructure services for broadband fiber optic and network cabling services, allowing participating towns, cities and municipalities to build high-speed networks that improve communications, connecting online resources and databases, upgrading data recovery capabilities to secure business continuity and developing fast, reliable, online data and broadband services to improve access to every home and business, especially for unserved and under served municipalities and communities.   

Sertex Broadband Contact InformationShawn Harmon, Vice President of Operations860-317-1006 

Visit the Human Resources Portal at https://nutmeghr.org/.

CRCOG has contracted with Novus Insight to provide a variety of general IT, hosting, and consulting services.  Novus Insight provides a wide spectrum of IT related services including, assessment, application development, migration services, consulting, hosting, and on-site support at a pre-negotiated contract rate, resulting in cost-savings to municipalities.  

Novus Insight Contact InformationCarl Fazzina, Senior Sales Manager860-282-4200 ext. 733 

FAQs

By utilizing the concept of group purchasing, CRCOG is often able to negotiate a lower price than municipalities would leverage individually. We represent a group of interested towns which allows the vendor to lower their standard price. Each IT Services program RFP is specifically drafted to enable piggybacking to encourage new towns to take advantage of the group savings. The prospect of additional towns allows CRCOG to secure favorable pricing.

In addition to cost savings, the CRCOG IT Services Cooperative saves municipal staff time. The RFP process is complex and requires dozens of staff hours to conduct. Each program has already been through that process, allowing municipalities to purchase the product/services immediately. This also expedites the purchasing process because there is no need to wait weeks to collect bids and evaluate proposals like the traditional RFP process.

Yes. The CRCOG IT Services Cooperative is available to Connecticut municipalities, boards of education, libraries and other public entities. The CRCOG IT Services Cooperative is a combined effort of the CRCOG Service Sharing Initiative, the Capitol Region Purchasing Council (CRPC) and the Connecticut Council of Small Towns (COST). If you are a member of one of these organizations, you can access the CRCOG IT Services Cooperative. If you are not a member of any of these organizations, you can join the Cooperative as an independent organization for a small annual membership fee.

In terms of initial procurement, these programs work identically like state contract, however do not have a state contract number. According to Connecticut State Statute Sec. 4a-53 (Formerly Sec. 4-110c) and Sec. 4a-53(b), the State of Connecticut is permitted to join in cooperative purchasing plans and purchase equipment, supplies, materials, and services from a current contract negotiated by a political subdivision when in the best interests of the state. Consequently, municipalities have the ability to purchase services through cooperative purchasing. CRCOG is classified as a political subdivision of the State of Connecticut and has the authority to submit Request for Proposals/Information/Qualifications (RFP, RFI, RFQ), evaluate bids, and enter into contracts with private vendors for equipment, supplies, materials, and services on behalf of other government agencies.

As long as piggybacking isn’t explicitly restricted by your municipality’s charter, you are able to use our contracts to purchase items directly from our vendors.

CRCOG staff take a proactive approach to improving our programs. CRCOG actively solicits feedback from the program participants which is passed on to the vendor. Because of the nature of the software industry, feedback is vital when updating the product to better serve the end user. With an anonymous feedback loop providing accurate and constructive criticism, vendors are well equipped to serve the towns and adapt their offerings accordingly.

Should any issues with the product/service arise, CRCOG staff can act as a mediator to facilitate communication between the vendor and the municipality at any time. This can often help expedite the problem solving and remediation process and ensure both parties are content with the outcome.

Due to the nature of public procurement, municipalities are only able to purchase current goods and services offered through the current vendors because they have been selected as part of a competitive process. However, CRCOG is always looking for new ideas. If your municipality is interested in purchasing any software or IT related service that you think will be of interest to other towns, please contact the IT Services Program Manager. All IT purchase inquiries are brought to the Municipal Services Committee for deliberation. If there is sufficient interest from the Committee, CRCOG staff is authorized to start the procurement process. The initiating Municipality is often selected as a pilot town and offered a position on the program review committee. Pilot towns often have their initial and maintenance costs subsidized by CRCOG or other grant fund sources.