Livingston City Council approved a new purchasing policy that will raise the monetary threshold to activate a competitive bidding process.
Mayor Lori Elder Burnett said the new policy will raise the threshold from $2,500 to $25,000. Elder said the new policy would require the city to get three written quotations on purchases between $10,000-$20,000. Elder said she is for the change, as raising the threshold will allow the city to make smaller purchases more efficiently.
“We are already doing our due diligence to go ahead and get three written quotations for things even less than $10,000,” Burnett said. “But sometimes you don’t get responses to the bids. It just delays what happens sometimes in our day-to-day activities by having to wait on that and go through that whole process.”
Burnett said by law, the city must have a competitive bid threshold policy. Burnett said the council did have the flexibility to set the thresholds at less than or more than what the council landed on.
“That’s what a lot of municipalities have adopted,” Burnett said. “Some are not that much, but you know, because we are going to have to get three written quotations for anything that’s $10,000 and above, they felt like that would be sufficient.”
Burnett said the city already has a system in place to ensure purchases are transparent.
“We already have purchasing procedures in place where you have to get a PO, and supervisors have to get involved,” Burnett said. “We have an accountability system already in place with two signatures on checks when we are doing accounts payable, etc.”
The new purchasing policy was passed on first reading. A public hearing and a vote to approve the policy on second reading will take place at next month’s council meeting.
