City administration plans to update its purchasing policy for the first time since 2019, after identifying several areas that it believes will help increase accountability and transparency.
The first amendment introduces a definition for a pre-qualification process, which has become more common during the past three years at city hall, finance director Brian Acker explained during the Feb. 28 executive committee meeting.
“When some bidders were eliminated from the pre-qualification process, we had some feedback … where they did have some concerns about why they did not qualify or were not allowed to carry on,” he noted.
In the purchasing policy, a pre-qualification process ensures “there is a reasonable prospect that each bidder or proponent who participates in a tender or request for proposals has demonstrated the ability (expertise, physical ability to deliver, and financial resources) to perform the work in a satisfactory manner and is deemed qualified for subsequent tender or RFP submission.”
When city administration uses a pre-qualification process to determine suitable candidates for a tender or request for proposals, directors must notify the city manager of any eliminated candidates and why.
A second amendment adjusts the financial limit around project change orders, where department heads can now approve changes up to $50,000 versus $25,000 to facilitate faster turnaround time, Acker continued.
Anything higher must go to Acker for review and city manager Jim Puffalt for approval, while it must go directly to Puffalt if the project’s scope changes significantly.
“The rationale for this change is we have a fairly significant number of change orders … (it’s) simply to get some of those more miscellaneous change orders to move more quickly through the process,” said Acker.
Meanwhile, the city manager now has the authority to award change orders up to $150,000. Anything higher and the change order must go to council for approval.
The third amendment handles disqualified bidders or proponents, an issue on which the purchasing policy has been silent, Acker said. City administration believes the policy should clearly outline the procedure of how to handle disqualified bidders or proponents.
According to the new definition, a disqualified bidder or proponent is a contractor or company that has been excluded from the pre-qualification, tender or request for proposal review (RFP) process due to expertise, ability, physical or financial reasons, past performance or unsatisfactory references. The city manager must then be informed of these exclusions.
However, a bidder eliminated via the pre-qualification, tender or RFP evaluation process is not considered a disqualified bidder or proponent. If bidders or proponents have not been disqualified for the above reasons, the city manager must approve the award.
All tenders, direct awards and RFP awards over $50,000 must be reported four times per year by department heads to council for information, Acker said. The report should confirm that the municipality’s purchasing policy and procedures have been uniformly applied or inform council of any deficiencies.
Coun. Jamey Logan agreed with the changes.
“I think it’s fairly in line with standardizing and modernizing things,” he added. “The (financial) values are in line with where they need to be.”
Council then voted unanimously to adopt the amendments to the purchasing policy and add them to the city administration bylaw. The recommendation will be official once council passes it as a motion during a future regular council meeting.
The next executive committee meeting is Monday, March 14.
