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What governments pay for the same thing

A city about to buy body-worn cameras has no way to find out what sixty other governments paid for them. The figures are all public and each one sits in a different agenda, in a different portal. Here they are side by side, drawn from 344 governments' own award records.

Purchases many governments make

Body-worn cameras $178K – $2.56M 67 contracts · 49 governments Ambulances $224K – $1.13M 136 contracts · 60 governments Fire engines $240K – $1.50M 110 contracts · 48 governments Street sweepers $285K – $750K 59 contracts · 35 governments Janitorial services $95K – $800K 204 contracts · 66 governments Audit services $100K – $1.04M 219 contracts · 64 governments Tree trimming $95K – $849K 40 contracts · 20 governments Playground equipment $118K – $420K 253 contracts · 80 governments Asphalt paving $134K – $1.33M 497 contracts · 98 governments Crossing guards $115K – $2.04M 18 contracts · 14 governments Towing services $108K – $800K 45 contracts · 24 governments Security guard services $173K – $3.36M 71 contracts · 34 governments Water meters $189K – $1.50M 170 contracts · 63 governments Police vehicles $99K – $636K 228 contracts · 68 governments Traffic signals $102K – $652K 455 contracts · 94 governments Roof replacement $161K – $853K 157 contracts · 76 governments HVAC replacement $84K – $746K 320 contracts · 98 governments Engineering services $150K – $985K 2,152 contracts · 140 governments Legal services $55K – $450K 337 contracts · 64 governments Fuel $127K – $2.02M 346 contracts · 92 governments

These are contracts, not prices. They are not like for like: some cover ten years and a whole city, others a single unit added to something a government already owned, and a few are omnibus agreements that merely mention the item among others. Amendments are left out, because an amendment usually restates the value of the deal it changes and would count the same money twice. That is why the middle half is given rather than an average, and why every row links to the document it was read from — the range is the honest answer, and the source is how you check which end of it applies to you.

Want to know when this work goes back out to bid, not just what it went for? See contracts winding down

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