Cook County Bids: How Often Solicitations Draw One Response

Of the 1,284 solicitations in Cook County’s public bid-tabulation file since June 2016, 277 drew exactly one response and 108 drew none — 385, or 30.0 percent. The share drawing one response or none reached 44.9 percent in 2022, stayed near 40 percent through 2024 and fell to 28.8 percent in 2025. For formal bids above $25,000, the file’s most common kind, it is 325 of 995, 32.7 percent.

Procurement — Bid Tabulations (32au-zaqn), 5,659 rows covering solicitations opened from June 1, 2016 through September 9, 2026, retrieved September 18, 2026; last updated September 17, 2026 · the file calls its tabulations preliminary · responses are counted, never priced: this page publishes no bid amount or firm name, and county staff names were never read · a single response is a count, not a finding · no cause is assigned to any change

Near or above 40 percent from 2022 through 2024

A solicitation is a contract number and its bid-opening date; five numbers were opened twice and count twice. Responders are distinct company names in the file, counted, not named.
Year	Solicitations	No response	One response	One or none	Share
2016 (from June 1)	135	7	26	33	24.4%
2017	230	19	43	62	27.0%
2018	151	16	29	45	29.8%
2019	95	4	25	29	30.5%
2020	105	1	13	14	13.3%
2021	121	12	17	29	24.0%
2022	136	15	46	61	44.9%
2023	99	14	29	43	43.4%
2024	88	10	25	35	39.8%
2025	80	7	16	23	28.8%
2026 (through Sept. 9)	44	3	8	11	25.0%

The share of solicitations drawing one response or none ran between 24.4 and 30.5 percent from 2016 through 2019, with 2016 counted from June, fell to 13.3 percent in 2020, was 24.0 percent in 2021 and then climbed to 44.9 percent in 2022. It was 43.4 percent in 2023, 39.8 percent in 2024 and 28.8 percent in 2025. The file also holds fewer solicitations than it once did: 230 opened in 2017, 80 in 2025. Whether that reflects fewer solicitations or fewer posted tabulations, the file does not say.

Formal bids draw one response or none more often than proposals

The file writes the small-order label with a less-than sign, spelled out here. The seven other labels include variants such as “Bid Formal > $25K” without its hyphen, “BID” and “QUOTATION”; together they cover 18 solicitations.
Kind, as the file labels it	Solicitations	No response	One response	One or none	Share
Bid-Formal > $25K	995	86	239	325	32.7%
RFP/RFQ/RFI	156	6	12	18	11.5%
Bid-Small Order, under $25K	115	14	24	38	33.0%
Seven other labels	18	—	—	—	—
All solicitations	1,284	108	277	385	30.0%

Requests for proposals, qualifications or information drew one response or none 11.5 percent of the time; formal bids above $25,000, 32.7 percent; small orders, 33.0 percent. The file’s description notes that bids of $25,000 or more are publicly opened and read, while proposal responses are not publicly opened and the respondents’ names come from their sealed packages.

Who responds

Of the 5,549 response rows with a company, 4,156 — 74.9 percent — list Illinois as their state; California, New York and Florida follow, and 128 rows carry no state. The file lists responders by name, city and state, and this page counts them without naming any.

What the file confirms, and what it cannot tell you

Confirmed, as posted: each solicitation’s opening date, kind and department, and the companies that responded, or a flag that none did. Not shown here or not in the file: bid amounts, which this page does not publish; which response won; why a solicitation drew one response or none; and solicitations the county did not post. The description calls the tabulations preliminary and subject to change. Department names are not consistent — Facilities Management appears under at least three spellings — so this page does not compare departments. Sixty-six solicitations list the same company twice; each company is counted once.

Where the record lives

The Bid Tabulations file sits on Cook County’s data portal; tabulations before June 2016 are in a separate file. Every figure here was computed from it as retrieved on September 18, 2026. This desk’s reading of the county’s check register covers what the county paid.

The bottom line

Three in 10 solicitations in Cook County’s bid-tabulation file since June 2016 drew one response or none, and the share was near or above 40 percent from 2022 through 2024 before falling to 28.8 percent in 2025. Formal bids and small orders draw one response or none far more often than requests for proposals.

Three questions the file can answer

How many solicitations drew six or more responses? 201 of the 1,284. How many drew exactly two? 277, the same number that drew one. How many solicitations has the file recorded in 2026? 44, through September 9.

Source: Cook County’s Procurement — Bid Tabulations file (32au-zaqn), 5,659 rows, retrieved September 18, 2026 and read whole.
Columns read: bid-opening date, procurement type, contract number, department, the no-responses flag, company name and state. Bid amounts, notes, city, location and the county procurement contact were never selected; company names were used only to count responders.
Solicitation: a contract number with its bid-opening date; responders are distinct company names within it.
Not here: no bid amount, no firm’s name, no judgment about any solicitation, and no cause for any change.

Computed by KCM Desk from Cook County’s bid-tabulation file, retrieved September 18, 2026. Human-guided and edited — about this desk. If you spot an error, corrections come first.