The county procurement experiment with big lessons for cities

A focus on procurement has helped Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava drive innovation—in transit, cargo, and more—throughout her Florida county. Photos courtesy of Miami-Dade County and Miami-Dade Innovation Authority

February 13, 2025

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Today’s city leaders recognize that procurement is more than just a compliance exercise—it can be a powerful driver of innovation. Yet, many of them wrestle with a similar struggle when they look to tap their city’s purchasing power to pioneer solutions: a lack of speed. The same safeguards that protect the process from corruption can also get in the way of solving problems at the pace residents need.

That’s why leaders in Florida’s Miami-Dade County have spent the past two years rethinking how local governments approach procurement and, as a result, have created what is being heralded as a next-generation approach at the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority. The effort—which has been guided by a strong mayoral vision—is removing choke points in the process and making better use of private-sector expertise and networks. In doing so, it is providing ample insights for cities looking to take their procurement strategies to the next level.

A vision for speeding up the process.

When a mayor sets a vision for procurement as a force for innovation—and specifically accelerating the pace of innovation—it can be a game-changer. And that’s exactly what kickstarted the new way of doing things in Miami-Dade.

For Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, it was a case of inspiration. She has long worked to elevate procurement as a strategic function across her government, and to that end has partnered with the Bloomberg Philanthropies-supported Procurement Excellence Network. But it was during a 2022 trip to Israel that she was struck by how the national Israel Innovation Authority was fast-tracking solutions: by identifying emerging problem-solving technologies and then helping scale the companies developing them. She imagined a similar approach could work with procurement back home. That’s how the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority—a nonprofit formed by public/private collaboration that incorporates elements of problem-based procurement to tackle everything from repurposing seaweed to improving the experience at the local airport—was born.

As the mayor explained at the time, "We’re inviting the private sector to join us as we unlock [more carefully targeted], more cost-effective solutions to big public sector problems” that can be scaled quickly.

The county still has its own internal procurement office, separate from the Innovation Authority. But rather than operating in isolation, the two work in complementary partnership—fostering shared learning and, more than anything else, a determination to deliver new solutions with speed.

“For me, it's like a dream come true,” Namita Uppal, the county’s chief procurement officer, tells Bloomberg Cities of her new partners in the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority. “They're able to make it happen faster.”

Stress-testing the current system and identifying choke points.

One of the ways the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority is making procurement faster is by taking a 10,000-foot view of the current system, identifying bottlenecks, and fixing them. And one of the biggest choke points is the way municipalities test and implement new ideas through pilot programs.

“The big takeaway for us has been that, just because municipalities have a policy that says you can pilot, there's often a lack of infrastructure to effectively execute on it,” explains Leigh-Ann Buchanan, president and CEO of the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority.

For example, in many cities, each department or agency has its own pilot framework—and specifically its own version of a piloting agreement. Whenever local leaders want to try something new, that can create logistical headaches for their legal and risk management teams, which need to coordinate on drawing up new language.

“That's often where the process is very slowed down, especially if you're contracting for something more innovative,” explains Elena Hoffnagle, director of procurement scaling and innovation at the Government Performance Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School.

By contrast, if cities standardize pilot agreements across city hall—as Miami-Dade has done across the county—they can get new projects off the ground much more quickly.

Pushing private-sector partners to provide concrete deliverables.

Another way Miami-Dade is speeding up innovation is by engaging local businesses and knowledge institutions earlier in the procurement process.

For example, the Authority uses a challenge-based approach to describe public needs and invite in a wide range of private-sector ideas, and has seen some 350 companies take part in its competitions. But in some ways, the more striking figure is a smaller one—approximately 100—representing the universities, nonprofits, and startup incubators that have helped to craft these challenges. These partners have assisted with everything from defining technical specifications to sourcing companies through their networks, ensuring that solutions are both practical and well-matched to local needs.

In other words, this approach goes beyond simply inviting private-sector companies to propose solutions—it maximizes the value of these partnerships. This not only enhances collaboration but also accelerates procurement, ensuring that innovative solutions reach residents faster.

According to Colin Erhardt, the assistant director overseeing the Procurement Excellence Network, the takeaway from this larger experiment is just how much is possible when a mayor sets a vision for procurement that fast-tracks change.

“Across our work, we have seen the most successful procurement reforms when senior government leaders, procurement staff, and innovation teams are all aligned on shared priorities,” he says.