State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

In Government Procurement, Buying Local Is Popular. But Is It Beneficial?

Governing: Rita Ferguson is president and co-founder of a 37-year-old specialty concrete company, G&F Concrete Cutting Inc. Most of G&F’s work consists of providing material for public works projects in and around Orange County, Calif. Concrete has been good to Ferguson: Her company has been growing steadily over the years, with annual revenues between $5 million and $10 million. In 2016, she started looking for new, more spacious quarters for it.

With several available sites that seemed reasonable, the company picked a location right off Interstate 5 in Los Angeles. The deciding factor was “local preference,” a rule that gives companies located in a given city, county or state an advantage in the bidding process for contract work inside that territory. Local preference “gave Los Angeles an edge,” Ferguson says.

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