As the second quarter of this fiscal year emerges, Washington County department heads can look forward to significantly more purchasing latitude.
During a regular meeting on Monday, the Washington County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to raise its allowable procurement amount from $1,000 to $5,000.
The topic of the county’s procurement procedure was raised by District 4 Supervisor Mala Brooks as she was made aware that blinds purchased by the county for the Kermit the Frog Museum were not favorable.
Brooks said the preferred blinds for the museum were $200 more than the ones the county purchased — roughly $1,2000.
In her quest to make sure the preferred blinds were purchased, Brooks made a motion to approve the procurement of funds for the blinds and then proceeded to shed light on the source of her objection to the county’s procurement policy.
“The issue was that the county administrator told me that the county has a procurement set up whereas if it’s over a thousand dollars, then it has to come before the board and that’s why I want to talk about procurement,” said Brooks. “My biggest concern is that Leland was working with the county to get ready for Christmas on the Creek and it was the largest they’ve ever had, but the concern was that they were trying to get the blinds up and it slowed the process down because the county has legislation that says to purchase anything over a thousand, it has to come back before the board.”
Brooks recommended increasing the procurement amount from $1000 to $2,000 or $2,500.
“We’re slowing it completely down over $200 and I just want to make sure that when they have projects like that going on, it should not come before the board for $200 over $1000,” she added. “I think $2000 is a safety net where department heads don’t have to come back before us two weeks later just to make changes.”
Agreeing with Brooks, District 1 Supervisor Lee Gordon pointed out where setting the procurement of $1,000 stemmed from.
“If you all go back, the reason we put that $1,000 there is because we were $3 million in the hole when we walked in the door. That’s why put that there,” he recalled. “It was not there when we approved it, but we put that there until we got back on our feet and we had some control and could see exactly what we were spending.”
Like Brooks, Gordon was of the sentiment that $1,000 is not a significant amount of money, especially when it comes to major vehicular parts such as compressors and the like.
He added, “I’m not afraid of $2,500, I don’t think that’s out of line because you still have to explain it and it still has to go through the county administrator’s office.”
BOS president Carl McGee reiterated the procurement amount was set as a cost savings measure, but highlighted the BOS has ratified such purchases in the past for similar situations to make sure “things were appropriate for visitors” and other related matters, even if it meant utilizing petty cash.
Griffin also acknowledged that even if the amount was increased to $2,500, all of the purchase orders would have to be submitted to the county administrators office, providing an extra layer of spending awareness.
“Only reason I made that comment is because there are things that happen outside of this meeting and the county administrator has to make sure that we continue business,” McGee said, recalling an instance in which a necessary purchase exceeding $1,000 was made and yielded a positive outcome. “She takes care of the day-to-day.”
He added, “I’m just not comfortable with raising it from $1,000 if it’s not necessary…the county administrator has the leeway to make those types of decisions.“
Brooks then made a motion to raise the allowable procurement amount from $1,000 to $2,500.
The motion was seconded by Gordon and unanimously approved by the BOS.
