MOOSE JAW — With tariffs causing uncertainty for some companies about winning contracts, one city councillor wants city hall to prioritize community businesses over outside organizations so the former can benefit economically.
During city council’s recent regular meeting, Coun. Patrick Boyle moved that the municipality update its purchasing policy to include “local preference and/or community-benefit components” for all city procurements, with city administration to present a report with the updated policy during the Monday, June 23 meeting.
“Looking at this from the perspective of the current climate in the world today, we need to put preference on Moose Jaw and Moose Jaw companies and our businesses that do business in the City of Moose Jaw,” he said. “This is not uncommon across other areas.”
Boyle said he has spoken with several community companies that bid on projects elsewhere and has learned they regularly face the issue of scoring lower on initiatives than other businesses in those municipalities.
Continuing, he said city hall either doesn’t have that scoring preference in the procurement policy or doesn’t fully recognize community businesses. So, he wanted the policy changed “in a purposeful way” and to “send a message” that council supported Moose Jaw’s business community.
Council then asked administration for input, with finance director Brian Acker saying he didn’t have a formal report to give, as the normal procedure is for administration to either provide communication about the motion or have council refer the issue for further investigation.
“Just from my years of experience, that is a much better way for council and administration to interact,” he stated. “We’re able to do the appropriate research, provide you with the information, and then council has a full array of (options for) the direction they want to go … .”
With the “buy local” idea, administration had previously considered that but determined there was no need for such a policy, Acker continued. This is because most local suppliers “have an inherent advantage” operating in Moose Jaw as they have no freight costs or employee-related travel or lodging costs.
Furthermore, the City of Moose Jaw is “best-valued based” for its procurement, so “buy local” could eliminate the innovation and quality that accompany acquiring goods and services, the finance director said.
Also, that approach narrows the supplier base because outside providers would see no point in bidding because of the advantages given to community suppliers, Acker added. That creates a truncated supplier list and could lead to supply chain issues.
Coun. Chris Warren liked the motion’s intent but thought there were different options to consider and other municipalities to emulate. He noted that other cities enhance the criteria for scoring best-value contracts or requests for proposals. This puts less weight on favouring local companies and more weight on the procurements themselves.
Specifically, some municipalities use a “tie-bid preference,” where if two companies receive roughly the same score on a project, the municipality uses a local preference as a tiebreaker, he added.
In response, Boyle said the motion was “pretty clear” that an updated procurement policy would return to council’s executive committee for further discussion. Moreover, the motion gave administration direction, with council able to accept, reject or amend anything that came forward.
Coun. Jamey Logan, who owns several businesses, said his companies run into the issue of local-first procurement policies regularly.
Meanwhile, he thought there were “many, many ways” to enact an updated procurement policy, such as using a weighted ratio, which wouldn’t price any company out of the city or the market. This might give “a tiny little benefit” to residents who do business here and help them “get over that hump” of winning a contract.
“And we’re a small city and (businesses here are) competing against some really big players sometimes that have potentially better buying power,” added Logan.
Coun. Heather Eby wanted to see the motion amended or referred to administration because “words are important,” and while everyone understood Boyle’s intent, the motion specifically said the policy should be updated immediately if council approved the motion.
Not wanting his motion to be defeated, Boyle moved that his request be referred to administration for a report, with council voting unanimously in favour.
