Guides
How public work gets funded, scoped, and awarded.
Straight answers to the questions teams ask before they pursue city, county, school district, and state work.
How to find government contracts
Government contracts are published across three separate layers: federal opportunities on SAM.gov, state opportunities on each state's procurement portal, and local opportunities on thousands of individual city, county, and school district websites.
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How to win city and county paving contracts
City and county paving work is awarded almost entirely through low-bid competitive sealed bidding on an annual street resurfacing program that is funded during the budget cycle and scoped by the public works department months before it is advertised.
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RFP, RFI, sources sought, and IFB — what each one means
An IFB (invitation for bid) is a price-only competition awarded to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder.
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How to get on a city or county bidders list
Getting on a bidders list means registering as a vendor with each individual agency, usually through a free online vendor portal on the agency's website or the eProcurement system it subscribes to.
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How school districts buy construction and facility services
School districts buy construction and facility services through three channels: bond-funded capital programs approved by voters and administered by the board, annual operating budget work for maintenance and small projects, and cooperative purchasing contracts that let a district buy off another agency's competitively awarded contract without running its own bid.
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Government bid sites compared
SAM.gov is free and authoritative for federal opportunities only.
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How to read a capital improvement plan
A capital improvement plan, or CIP, is a public multi-year schedule of the projects an agency intends to build, with an estimated cost and funding source for each year.
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Who to call at an agency before the bid posts
Before a solicitation is advertised, the people worth contacting are the ones who define the work: the public works or facilities director who owns the capital program, the program or project engineer scoping the job, and the procurement or purchasing manager who will run the process.
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How government agencies evaluate bids
Public agencies award either on low bid, where the lowest responsive and responsible bidder wins outright, or on best value, where a committee scores written proposals against published criteria and price is one weighted factor among several.
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Public procurement thresholds explained
Every public agency buys under dollar thresholds set by state law and local policy.
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How cooperative purchasing contracts work
A cooperative purchasing contract is competitively awarded once by a lead agency and then made available to member agencies nationwide, who can buy from it directly without running their own bid.
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How to write a government proposal that scores
A winning public sector proposal is organized around the solicitation's evaluation criteria, not around your company.
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Sole source and emergency procurement
Public agencies can buy without competition in narrow, documented circumstances: a sole source purchase, where only one supplier can meet a legitimate need, and an emergency procurement, where a threat to health, safety, or essential operations makes normal timelines impossible.
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How to sell software to government agencies
State and local agencies buy software through a longer path than commercial buyers: a department identifies a need, funding is requested in the annual budget, IT and legal review security and data terms, and procurement runs a competitive process or uses an existing contract vehicle.
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The government fiscal year buying cycle
Most state and local agencies run a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year, with departments building requests in the winter, the governing body adopting a budget in the late spring, spending beginning in July, and remaining funds being committed before the year closes.
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How to debrief or protest a lost bid
After a loss, request a debrief and the public records for the procurement — score sheets, the tabulation, and the winning submission where disclosable.
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How to register as a government vendor
Registering as a government vendor is a stack, not a single form: SAM.gov for federal and federally funded work, your state's vendor or eProcurement portal for state agencies, a secretary of state filing to do business in that state, and a local vendor list for each city, county, or district you serve.
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Bid bonds and performance bonds explained
A surety bond is a three-party guarantee that you will do what your bid says.
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Prevailing wage and certified payroll
Prevailing wage laws require contractors on public projects to pay a set hourly rate and fringe benefit amount for each labor classification, published by the government as a wage determination.
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DBE, MBE, and WBE certification for government work
DBE, MBE, WBE, SDVOSB, and similar certifications identify a business as owned and controlled by a qualifying group, and they are issued by a certifying agency after a documented review — not self-declared.
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How to find government subcontracting opportunities
Subcontracting is the fastest entry into public work because it skips the bonding, prequalification, and past performance hurdles that gate prime awards.
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How to use public records requests for bid intelligence
Nearly everything in a completed public procurement is a public record: the bid tabulation, the individual evaluation score sheets, the winning proposal, the executed contract, and later change orders.
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How to win a government contract recompete
A recompete is the most predictable opportunity in public sector selling, because the expiration date is written in a contract that is already public.
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How to price a government bid
Pricing a public bid starts with the award method: on a sealed low bid the lowest responsive, responsible bidder wins outright, while on a best value procurement price is one weighted factor among several and the cheapest bid frequently loses.
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What is Hank?
Hank is how companies find, pursue, and win state and local government work. Every day it reads tens of thousands of sources — agency portals, board packets, budget approvals, capital plans, meeting minutes, and expiring contracts published by cities, counties, school districts, and state agencies — and surfaces what matters to your service lines in real time, often months before a solicitation posts. When the solicitation does post, Hank breaks it down into scope, key dates, submission requirements, evaluation criteria, and compliance items, names the people at the agency to contact, and drafts a first-pass proposal from your own past work. Every signal, contact, document, and pursuit stays in one place your team works out of.