The Team Nutrition Grant Project began in 2003 with the goal to guide and assist schools to create and maintain a coordinated, comprehensive school health program. Such a program integrates a school’s child nutrition programs, with the classroom, the community, and entire school environment. A coordinated, comprehensive school health program (CSHP) can be implemented to create a healthy school environment through a “model” nutrition policy. Using the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service Team Nutrition’s Changing the Scene, A Guide to Local Action, the project proposed to implement the model at a state level by forming a state level coalition of key decision makers within the school environment.

The Office of the Auditor General has conducted a special audit addressing selected state practices for information technology procurement as compared to other states. Specifically, we analyzed the State’s practices in the areas of indemnification, liability, insurance, and warranties. As with other states we reviewed, Arizona’s IT contracts help to protect the State from risk of loss, but would benefit from IT-specific contract templates. We also reviewed best practices for the ownership of intellectual property. Although Arizona’s terms and conditions generally require state ownership of intellectual property for IT projects, the State should provide options for intellectual property ownership based on who pays for the development costs. In addition, we analyzed IT standardization and its impact on the procurement process. Although standardization can impact procurement, IT must still be purchased through a competitive procurement process.