More than half of the active health and human services contracts that Montgomery County holds were awarded without competitive bidding, according to the county’ open data record. County law allows the practice, and the data does not show whether any individual award was improper.The county’s open-data Contracts dataset lists 2,368 active county contracts as of October 30, 2026. Of these, the Department of Health & Human Services holds 515. The data further indicates that 279 of DHHS’s contracts, approximately 54 percent, are non-competitive. These include 254 awarded as “Non-Competitive – Council Resolution,” 23 as “Non-Competitive,” and two as “Non-Competitive – State Grant.” The other DHHS contracts include 116 from open solicitations and 79 from requests for proposals (non-construction).
How Non-Competitive Awards Work
Section 11B-14(a)(4) of the Montgomery County Code allows a contract to be awarded without competition if the Chief Administrative Officer makes a written determination that the award serves a public purpose and the proposed contractor has been identified in a grant or appropriation resolution approved by the Council. The Council names the entities that may receive such awards in Section G of its annual operating budget resolution, adopted May 21, 2026, contains the fiscal year 2027 list.
Long-Running Contracts and Nonprofit Providers
Countywide, the dataset lists 531 non-competitive contracts across all departments; DHHS holds 279 of them, just over half. Of the 279 non-competitive DHHS contracts, 234 are with vendors the dataset marks as nonprofits and 45 are not. The largest groups by DHHS division are Aging & Disability (93 contracts), Service to End & Prevent Homelessness (53), Behavioral Health and Crisis Services (47), Children, Youth & Families (39), and Public Health (20).Most of them, 245 of the 279, expire on June 30, 2027, the last day of fiscal year 2027. Thirty-seven of the 279 list execution dates before 2010. The earliest listed execution date is April 25, 2001, for an Adventist Health Care contract for assisted living services to mentally ill adults. Another, with The Arc Montgomery County, lists an execution date of December 6, 2001, for after-school and summer respite care for youths with developmental disabilities. Forty-three of the 279 list execution dates on or after July 1, 2025.
What the Data Does Not Show
The dataset lists no dollar amounts for the contracts. It also lists extension dates of 2040 or later for 128 of the non-competitive DHHS Council-resolution contracts, including contracts that expire in 2027; the dataset does not explain that field and TANTV News has not confirmed what it represents. Copies of individual contracts are available through a public-records request to the county’s Office of Procurement, according to the dataset’s description.
What’s Next
The data shows that 245 of the 279 non-competitive DHHS contracts are set to expire on June 30, 2027. Interested parties can request copies of individual contracts through the county’s Office of Procurement.
