Tracking the Spend: Caltrans’ IT Buys Included Tools Related to Ukraine War

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) spent just under $13 million in the third quarter of the year on its five largest purchases of IT services — two of which were related to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s March 2022 executive order restricting state agencies from doing business with Russian banks or entities amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

According to the State Contracting and Procurement Registration System, Caltrans spent $12,943,704 between July 1 and Sept. 30 on the five largest contracts for IT services. Those services included data management, consulting and maintenance/operations, as well as the two contracts covering licenses and subscriptions to text search and editing tools. Those tools, provided by WordRake Holdings LLC and CPE Services Ltd., were presumably used to find any state contracts or encumbrances related to Russian entities that have been sanctioned by the federal government over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“All agencies and departments subject to my authority shall review all contracts for commodities, services, and technology to determine whether they comply with existing economic sanctions,” Newsom’s executive order decrees. It also states that all state agencies “shall terminate any contracts with any individuals or entities that are determined to be a target of economic sanctions … and shall refrain from entering into any new contracts with such individuals or entities while economic sanctions are in effect.”

Caltrans’ five largest buys, with rounding, included:

• $11,999,700 for software, consulting and data services related to Caltrans’ Transportation Asset Management System 2. The competitively bid contract was awarded July 17 to Transcend Spatial Solutions LLC and runs through Aug. 4, 2025.
• $900,000 for IT consulting, maintenance and operations in a Sept. 1 IT Master Services Agreement (IT MSA) with Delegata Corp. that runs through Aug. 31, 2026.
• $25,000 for Rego’s Excel Data Manager for Clarity, which enables the user to extract data from Clarity, process it using Microsoft Excel, then edit, validate and return the data. The one-year renewal, awarded as a proprietary contract on Sept. 21, was with Rego Consulting Corp.
• $9,850 for WordRake text tools, used in ensuring compliance with Newsom’s executive order, in an Aug. 24 non-competitively bid contract with WordRake Holdings.
• $9,154 for MyCPE licenses, also related to Newsom’s order, in a Sept. 15 non-competitively bid contract with CPE Services LLC.

By comparison, during the corresponding period of 2022, Caltrans spent $1,670,370 on its five largest buys of IT services.

The periodic reports of spending on IT goods and services by agencies and departments in state government are compiled by Industry Insider — California as a way of highlighting procurements and trends.