Town Board Wants to Weaken Competitive Bidding

Hold on tight to your pocket book. The Yorktown town board is considering a “best value” procurement law that will water down the town’s current competitive bidding requirements – and very likely could mean higher prices for the goods and services the Town purchases.

Why, in these difficult economic times, when the Town needs to do all it can to save every possible dollar, is the Town Board considering a law that could increase our costs instead of lowering them?

Why is the Town Board considering a law that opens the door – wide – to favoritism and cronyism?

The proposed procurement law will be the subject of a public hearing on June 5. So if you’d like answers to these and other questions about the law, mark your calendar now and be sure to attend the hearing. Remember: it’s your money that the town is spending.

The “Procurement For Goods and Services Law” (for a copy of the law, visit the Town web site under “Pending Legislation”) weakens the town’s current procurement policy in two ways:

1. It raises the dollar threshold when competitive bidding is required. For goods and services, the threshold is raised to $20,000 from $10,000, and for public works projects, to $35,000 from $20,000.

2. It allows the Town Board to award bids based on the subjective phrase “best value” instead of to “the lowest responsible bidder.”

What’s wrong with raising the dollar threshold for bids?

1. It reduces competition. For goods and services below the price threshold, town departments would only have to get three price quotes. In contrast, depending on the item, bids might receive 5-10 responses. More competition almost always means a lower price.

2. It lacks transparency. Bids are publicly advertised and awarded at public meetings; quotes are not. With quotes, there’s no way the public knows what the Town is purchasing until after the fact when the purchase is paid for and shows up in the online Expense Ledger Report (see www.yorktownny.org/documents). There’s no opportunity for the public to question whether the department made a good faith effort to get the lowest possible quotes or simply called a carefully selected list of vendors.

3. It invites political interference. When written quotes are used, the vendor selection is typically made by the department head. But, since January, some members of the Town Board have gotten involved in the selection process. In recent months, this has happened for at least three purchases that were discussed at “open” Town Board meetings; the public isn’t privy to procurement discussions that might have taken place at any of the Board’s many “closed” meetings.

When politics mixes with procurement, the taxpayer often becomes the loser.

What’s wrong with awarding the bid based on “best value”?

The proposed law says that the determination of quality and cost efficiency “shall be based on objectively quantified and clearly described and documented criteria …” But how does someone objectively quantify “quality of craftsmanship”?

Another criteria is “proximity to the end user if distance or response time is a significant term.” There can be no doubt that this “proximity” phrase was put in to justify selecting a Yorktown business, regardless of price.

Of course it makes sense to use a local plumber when there’s an emergency leak. But barring an emergency, efficiently run departments should be able to anticipate what goods and services they will need in the weeks and months ahead; needing a new toner cartridge for a printer should not be considered an emergency. And common sense tells us that anticipated delivery time and cost should always be factored into any price comparison.

It’s ironic that one of the major criticisms in the 2010 NYS audit report was that the town should be doing MORE competitive bidding. But now, instead of strengthening our competitive bidding procedures, the Town Board is proposing to weaken them.

The purpose of competitive bidding is to foster honest and fair competition, while at the same time, protecting taxpayers by obtaining the lowest possible price.  Publicly advertised competitive bidding guards against favoritism, cronyism, extravagance and fraud while allowing interested vendors a fair and equal opportunity to compete.       

Competitive bidding works. It’s good for taxpayers. So why change the rules?

Let’s keep the policy we have and make sure it’s followed. On June 5, let’s not weaken it.  

For more information about procurement and other Yorktown issues, visit www.yorktownbettergovernment.org