As outlined in Mississippi Code Section 25-53-1, the Mississippi Department of Information Technology Services (MDITS) has approval authority over information technology acquisitions by state agencies including public Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL). For acquisitions with a lifecycle cost of $250,000 or less, MDITS has delegated that authority to each IHL’s Chief Information Officer. Acquisitions with a lifecycle cost greater than $250,000 require the involvement of MDITS. Detailed information about the role of MDITS in state agency IT purchases is available in their Procurement Handbook located at https://www.its.ms.gov/Procurement/Documents/ISS%20Procurement%20Manual.pdf.
MDITS involvement in an IT procurement is initiated by the submission of one of several different procurement request forms by the CIO to MDITS on behalf of the university department involved in the purchase. These forms can be found at https://www.its.ms.gov/Procurement/Pages/Procurement-Forms.aspx.
It should be noted that MDITS charges for their procurement services, and the Office of the CIO passes those charges on to the responsible MSU department. Requests can take from several days to several months to complete, depending on the complexity of the request and the procurement workload at MDITS when the request is submitted.
