The Board of Public works approved a $300 million IT contract Wednesday despite concerns about transparency and whether Maryland businesses and state agencies could be at a disadvantage in the deal.

Under the nine-year contract, a pool of eight preapproved companies will provide digital services to state agencies, with contracts awarded on a rotating basis between the companies.

Comptroller Brooke Lierman questioned the contract’s effects on competition and its costs to state agencies as well as the fact that the deal would have the effect of limiting future review of high-dollar contracts by the board.

“Vendors have expressed frustration to me … because when work is assigned on a rotational basis, vendors have very little agency over what work they’re performing on the contract,” Lierman said. “And if they decline a work order, they risk not being assigned another opportunity until the state works its way through the entire list.

“I have concerns, I guess, about this type of vehicle moving forward, and I hope, I hope I don’t see it again,” she said to the Department of General Services officials presenting the contract.

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