Ryan Golding, owner of Mastaler Cleaning Service, has contracts with the state to provide janitorial services at multiple properties. But for the last two months, since the state rolled out its new digital procurement system VTBuys, he says the state hasn’t paid about $12,000 it owes.
“That whole time, I’ve covered all my labor costs, all the equipment, all my supplies,” he said in an interview last week. “I can borrow from Peter and pay Paul basically until I get paid by the state.”
Golding is one of three small-business owners who told VTDigger they haven’t been paid or received payments late since Vermont adopted its new digital one-stop shop for state contracts, bidding and vendor payment. Two others spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear they’d lose future work with the state for speaking to the media.
The Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services and the Agency of Digital Services intended to launch VTBuys July 1, but coding bugs delayed the system’s rollout. At the time, Wanda Minoli, Buildings and General Services commissioner, said the false start was a natural part of pivoting to such a sweeping new system, and she remained confident in VTBuys’ effectiveness as an upgraded e-procurement platform.
After that initial delay, state leaders assured lawmakers late last month that VTBuys is now functioning well, paying state contractors and registering vendors. The initial hiccups, they said, had been quickly fixed.
But the complaints from small businesses appear to contradict that assessment. Asked why some vendors had not been paid, Cole Barney, spokesperson for the Department of Buildings and General Services, told VTDigger in an email that some agencies across state government have a backlog of payments since the switch to VTBuys. He wrote that while delays are expected with any transition, the state takes seriously “our responsibility for paying our vendors timely.”
“It is not a universal issue and there are a few factors contributing, including workflow approval errors and some user errors,” Barney wrote.
Small businesses working with the state told VTDigger their experience with VTBuys has been far from the historical norm. While one acknowledged an occasional payment delay in the past, all described their invoice issues as new, not something they expected under the previous system.
One owner of a small business said they’re owed about $10,000 from the state, a portion of the $100,000-$200,000 worth of work they tend to do for the state annually.
“Every inquiry I make into how soon can we get paid,” the business owner said, “is basically (met with), ‘The system is too complicated, we don’t have enough help.’”
In the past, invoices would be processed in a day or two, the contractor told VTDigger. Now, with two-month-old invoices, they said they are disappointed with the lack of communication and urgency.
“For a state that wants to encourage small business, this probably shouldn’t be happening,” the small-business owner said. “Because a small business can’t survive if they’re not being paid.”
A third small-business leader told VTDigger in late August the state owed them more than $60,000, almost $30,000 of which was two months past due.
“These are significant sums for our company,” they wrote in an email.
The state has since paid the invoices — a huge relief, according to the source. But the company is a subcontractor on another state project that still has unpaid invoices from July, they said.
