Osoyoos Town Council approved an amendment to its Purchasing Policy aimed at improving its ability to obtain more competitive purchasing contracts.
At the Nov. 28 regular council meeting Jim Zakall, Director of Financial Services highlighted there had been no updates to the town’s purchasing policy (FIN-002) since 2012.
“We are trying to bring us up to speed with some of the opportunities that are out there for the municipality,” he said.
This includes adding two categories to the town’s purchasing policy which includes “Cooperative Purchasing” and “Single Source or Sole Source Purchasing”.
Cooperative Purchasing means a variety of arrangements in which two or more public procurement entities combine their requirements in a single procurement process to obtain advantages of volume purchases from the same supplier(s) or contractor(s).
In such a case the Town of Osoyoos may join and participate in cooperative purchasing groups, including cooperative purchasing arrangements with other municipalities, agencies, boards and commissions.
It could also take the form of purchasing from the same supplier using a single bid solicitation to obtain the advantages of volume purchases. These advantages include administrative savings and other benefits.
Single or Sole Source Purchasing is a non-competitive acquisition in which the purchases for goods and or services are directed to the only available vendor of that good and or service.
The advantages of this form of purchase, according to Zakal, include administrative savings and other benefits, such as lessening supply chain issues, time delays and unforeseen price increases over time.
By getting the town’s purchasing policy in line with current practices, Zakal said the town would be better positioned to take advantage of opportunities to realize more competitive purchasing.
He cited the example of being able to take advantage of companies like Canoe Procurement Group of Canada which does much of the heavy lifting work in terms of the workaround vetting processes around the trade agreements between BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba for instance.
Responding to a question from Councillor Johnny Cheong, Zakal said the current method of purchasing revolves around competitive bids, “the RFQ (request for quote), the RFP (request for proposal)” which will not change under the proposed amendment.
He cited the example of the Town of Merritt purchasing something that Osoyoos is also looking to purchase, the amendments will enable Osoyoos to go in on the purchase along with Merritt which could result in cost savings from volume discounts for instance.
Zakal said it’s basically the same processes but there would be some time saving and less duplication of services as well.
