New Westminster city council is taking its time approving a policy intended to speed up city purchases.
The proposed procurement policy is being updated in response to changes in provincial trade agreements, changes in best practice in municipal procurement, increases in procurement volumes and the need to streamline the process. The revisions will apply to issues such as spending thresholds, authority to commit city funds, sole and single sourcing considerations and variances to project budgets.
Roy Moulder, the city’s purchasing manager, said the idea is that the revisions would allow staff to alter the spending thresholds to make it more expedient for procurement to take place in the city.
Moulder noted that one of the changes would give city staff discretion to make purchases of up to $15,000. Purchases of $15,000 to $75,000 could go through departments (with no requirement for posting opportunities on the city’s website), while purchases of greater than $75,000 must be advertised and must go through a formal tender or request for proposals prepared by the purchasing division.
“If it is over $75,000, it comes back to the purchasing manager,” Moulder said.
Coun. Betty McIntosh said she’d prefer that a brief posting of bids of less than $75,000 be listed on the city’s website so companies are able to see what’s available. She said local governments are often criticized for “working behind closed doors” so she would like the process to be as open as possible.
Moulder told council that staff’s intention is to create a pool of vendors, with a number of the qualified companies being selected to bid on each purchasing process. He said the intention is rotate the pools so the city is spreading opportunity around to various qualified vendors.
According to Moulder, any vendors having a subpar performance would be removed from the list. Other companies would be able to contact the city about getting into the pool of venders.
“We would vet that to determine if they had the proper requirements,” he said. “From that, we would be adding to the list.”
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr expressed concern about limiting bid opportunities to a select group of companies within the vendor pool, rather than allowing them all to bid on city contracts. If contracts are awarded to the highest bidder, he wants the process to trigger a response from the purchasing manager.
