City Council holds back on approval of new purchasing policy pending further study

A move to streamline the city's purchasing procedures will require a bit more time, that after City Council voted to send the proposal back to the city's financial officer, tasked with providing council members with a comparison between the current policy and procedures and those that would come into effect with the new policy proposal.

(See page 14 of the August 18th Agenda for a full review of the proposed policy changes)

The City's Financial Officer provided the overview of the planned purchasing policy, outlining the changes to be put in place.  Changes which would allow for a hire threshold for the quote process makes the procurement process more clear and addresses aspects of sole sourcing provisions.

The overall result is to bring the City in line with current purchasing practices in the industry and provide for more clarification for staff.

Councillor Ashley, inquired as to the sole source aspect of the proposal and the chain of command on those issues. Ms. Bomben explained that those would still be under the domain of department supervisors and managers.

Councillor Thorkelson offered up her concern over not having the old policy available for comparison with the new proposal that Council was considering at this time.

Ms. Bomben then provided a short snap shot of the proposed changes to the policy, highlighting the difference in the approval thresholds that would be revised in the new policy to an increase of 5,000 dollars.  There would be no changes in purchases over 75,000 dollars and clarified the nature of approvals for purchases over 25,000 dollars and offered background on the nature of purchases that were on a time sensitive nature and the sourcing aspects of the policy.

Councillor Thorkelson picked up on the theme of local sourcing first and welcomed that aspect of any proposed policy revision. She also then returned to her concern over the need for a full comparison between the current policy and the revised one under consideration.

Towards that request Council then moved to put the policy proposal aside until the next council session, allowing for more time for comparison with the policies currently in place.

You can review the full discussion on the Purchasing Policy revisions from the City's Video Archive, from the two minute to nine minute mark of the Council session.

For more items of interest on City Council developments see our archive page.