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U.S. Communities' Cooperative Purchasing Power Designed to Save Counties Money.

How does your county purchase office supplies? Furniture? What about auto parts and accessories for the county vehicles? Maintenance and janitorial supplies?

These days when counties are tightening their financial belts and clamping their pocketbooks shut, there are still the bare necessities that must find a way into the county shopping cart. But, that certainly doesn’t mean that Alabama’s counties have to pay, or overpay, for the things needed on a daily basis.

The U.S. Communities Government Purchasing Alliance was formed in 1999 to help counties meet their needs for specific products while continuing to meet their fiscal responsibilities as well.

The Association of County Commissions of Alabama partnered with the National Association of Counties to help bring U.S. Communities to Alabama’s counties, and sales totals by Alabama counties over the last five fiscal quarters has been just shy of $3 million.

“This program allows county governments in Alabama to receive enormous discounts on products they purchase on a routine basis,” said ACCA Executive Director Buddy Sharpless. “With this program, Alabama’s citizens are getting the benefit of the strength of the collective purchasing power of governments from across the country.”

However, of Alabama’s 67 counties, 23 counties remain unregistered for the U.S. Communities program. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about U.S. Communities is that there is no cost to the county to register and participate in the purchasing program.

Registration is easy, takes very little time to complete, and can help save your county thousands of dollars. Log on to www.uscommunities.org, and click Register to Participate.

From this point, there are just three more steps:
1) You must represent a government agency that has the ability to purchase from another public agency’s competitively solicited contract; and

2)You must agree to the general terms and conditions of the Master Intergovernmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement; and

3) You will need your agency’s Federal Tax Identification Number or Federal Employer Identification Number to complete the registration process. Please note that TIN/EIN is different from Tax Exempt ID. This information is usually available from your payables department.

U.S. Communities was designed to provide a program that was completely voluntary, had no minimum purchase requirements, and had no cost to participate. The goal was to make it accessible to the 87,250 units of U.S. local and state governments. The program initially launched with one contract for office supplies.

Nearly a decade later, the U.S. Communities program offers local and state governments with 16 product lines and more than 20 suppliers. Each contract has been competitively bid and each supplier committed to offer its most competitive pricing to all participating agencies.

The success of the program is probably best measured in its acceptance by local and state governments. More than 33,000 local, school (K-12), higher education, state and nonprofit agencies are registered and use the program.

In 2007, the estimated savings to public agencies through the use of these contracts was $200 million, on purchases exceeding $1.3 billion.

So, what companies are participating in the U.S. Communities project? More than you think, and more are being added each quarter. Companies like Office Depot®, Knoll, Ricoh Americas Inc., AutoZone®, The Home Depot®, Graybar®, Hagemeyer NA®, Tech Depot® by Office Depot®, Gametime®, Little Tikes® and ZEP Manufacturing Co.®, are a few of the companies with contracts that have been competitively solicited and accepted by the partnership. If these companies sound familiar, log online to see the others.

The program operates as a nonprofit instrumentality of government. A board of directors, composed of its founding members, and an advisory committee of professional public purchasing officials from local, state, school and university agencies oversee the program and its policies. They recommend new product lines and act as lead public agencies on solicitations and re-solicitations.

So, what’s stopping those counties that are not yet registered and taking full advantage of the purchasing power and savings offered by the U.S. Communities program?

According to Madison County Commission Chairman Mike Gillespie, it may be as simple as old habits being hard to break.

“Some counties may be so used to the way they have been doing things in the past that they may not want to make a change,” Gillespie said. “However, they may not realize the savings to the county, and ultimately to the taxpayer, that they are missing out on by not using the U.S. Communities program.”

Commitment to meeting the needs of local and state governments makes the U.S. Communities Government Purchasing Alliance an extremely valuable resource.
Representatives from U.S. Communities will be on hand during ACCA’s 80th Annual Convention in August to answer questions about the program.

For more information on U.S. Communities, as well as details on registering for the service, log online to www.uscommunities.org.