Purchasing

884 Purchasing

Effective Date:

Revision Date:

Purchase orders for goods or services must be utilized for any purchase over $100.00. Captains may purchase goods or materials for station maintenance to a limit of $100.00 without prior approval. If a purchase exceeds $100.00, the Captain must obtain a purchase order signed and approved by the appropriate authorized buyer of the affected cost center before purchasing or placing an order. The Assistant Chief may make purchases up to a limit of $500.00 without approval by the Fire Chief. Any unbudgeted item must be approved by the Fire Chief. The Fire Chief may approve all goods or services up to a limit of $1500.00. The Fire Chief shall review and approve the payables register prior to the bookkeeper dispensing with any checks. This shall be done to assure that all necessary authorizations have been executed.

Bidding Procedures: Any single item or service that costs less than $250.00 requires no additional bidding procedures. Items between $250.00 - $1,000.00 require a minimum of three bids that may be obtained by telephone. Items between $1,000.00 and $9,999.99 required a minimum of three written proposals. For items over $1,500.00, Board approval is required prior to purchase. The purchase of goods or services over $10,000.00 will required advertising in at least one local daily newspaper. Bids must be sealed until the advertised opening of bids. Staff will open bids, review, and prepare a spreadsheet and recommendation for Board approval.

Under no condition will employees of the District enter into arrangements with distributors affecting pricing or undermining fair competition.

At any level of purchasing procedure, the District shall strive to purchase locally. When a local bidder is not the lowest bidder, but the bid is within 5% of the low bid, and, the local bid matches the District's specifications, the local merchant should be contacted and given the opportunity to match the low bid. If the local bidder elects to match the low bid, then the bid is awarded to that merchant. A local merchant, for the purposes of this policy is a merchant within the boundaries of the District.

Staff may utilize bids for goods or services that were awarded to other governmental entities without completing the procedure referenced above.

Advertisement of request for bids includes publishing once in the local newspaper once, fifteen (15) days prior to the closing date of the bid acceptance. On specialty items(where there are limited numbers of fire apparatus manufacturers or fire appliance manufacturers) invitations to bid will be sent so as to ensure that a competitive sampling of the market is obtained.

Advertising in a local newspaper will not be required if all suppliers are out of town or if all available suppliers are identified and they will all be supplied bid proposals.

At times, the District may request bids for goods and services from employees with specific talents or desires. These goods and services will be outside the normal scope of job duties. Requests for bids will be posted in each station and/or sent to each station by E-mail. Postings shall be no less than six (6) consecutive shift days.

Policy No.  884  Issued  6/21/2004  Applicable  1/17/2005