The County Line - Fall 2000

ACCA Accepts Purchasing "Challenge"

One of the exciting things about this career is that you have the "opportunity" to learn a great deal about a lot of things. A whole lot of things.

And one of the new things that we've learned a great deal about during the last year is the process of bidding heavy road equipment and road signs. In fact, we've probably learned more about this bidding process that we really wanted to learn.

Last year about this time someone put forward the wonderful idea that we should find a way to conduct a statewide bid for the purchase of items that the counties now buy individually. The driving force was the old concept of bulk buying power.

The achievement of this goal required a very modest change in Alabama's existing law on joint purchasing and we were off to the races.

All 67 counties adopted resolutions to participate in the program, which this year included bids for motor graders, backhoe loaders, wheel loaders and a wide variety of road signs.

The bidding process has been very educational, to say the least. It is safe to say that everyone in the Association office now has a very strong appreciation for the county officials who must comply with the bid law everyday. The process, although necessary to ensure that the taxpayers are receiving the best expenditure of their funds, is very laborious and difficult.

The process was made even more complicated for this project because the bid process followed for the joint purchasing program was conducted as though each county was holding an individual bid for each item. So every company on any county's bid list was included in the bid mailing. More than 350 companies received notification of the heavy equipment bids and a host of sign manufacturers from throughout the country were notified of the sign bid program.

The writing of the bid specifications was also a very difficult process, especially since no one on the ACCA staff had ever purchased a motor grader or wheel loader. A team of county engineers -- dedicated to the success of the project -- spent a great deal of time on the draft bid specifications.

Then in early fall we held a meeting to inform the venders of the new program and to solicit their input on the contents of the bids. A team of engineers -- and the ACCA staff, unfortunately -- reviewed all the comments and then the final bid specifications were mailed to the companies and were posted in every courthouse in the state.

We then waited for the bids to be submitted and opened at the ACCA office on Nov. 21, 2000.

On Dec. 11, 2000, the bids will be awarded and counties will be able to purchase from this statewide joint purchasing program beginning Jan.1, 2001. Sometime in early spring, we will start the process again for the 2002 cycle.

The goal of the project is not a twisted desire to give the ACCA office an appreciation of the bid problems that counties experience each day. Although we certainly acquired a high level of appreciation for what happens back home. The goal, of course, is to save money and to cut down on the headaches on the local level.

Counties will be able to purchase the products from the bid list without conducting a separate local bid. By simply making a motion during a county commission meeting, officials will be able to carryout a process that normally takes weeks or even months. And that's a positive step forward for the counties.

The saving money aspect of the project must be evaluated after the bids are received, awarded and the counties make purchases for a year or so. The assumption is that a great deal of money will be saved during the course of an entire year. But again, we won't be sure about that for another 12 months or so.

Looking toward next year, we are already getting requests to add other equipment to the bid process, as well as other items used by other offices in county government. The applications of this new program are, I suppose, wide open.

If the program continues to grow, it is easy to predict that one day the Association will need to dedicate a staff member to this activity. But in the meantime, the existing staff has certainly enjoyed the "challenge" of living through the same bidding process that county officials face everyday.