Save taxpayer monies by revising city purchasing policy to lower threshold for competitive bids.
Mission Viejo is a general law council-manager contract city. This means that the city contracts out for services such as police, fire, and slope maintenance among other services. In addition, the city regularly purchases supplies and equipment. In order to cost effectively purchase services, supplies and equipment at the lowest possible cost that are commensurate with the city's quality needs, the use of competitive bid practices should be routinely employed. However, currently the city competitive bid threshold begins at $50,000 and the council can award contracts for personal services, professional or consulting services WITHOUT observing bidding procedures at all. This has resulted in the council awarding a lucrative consulting contract for a Get Out The Vote public awareness campaign in 2001 to a former council associate. To discourage uniform bidding, obtain full and open competition and to ensure that the taxpayers obtain the highest quality together with cost effectiveness the current city policy on competitive bids must be revised to start at a significantly lower threshold.
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