2010-10-22 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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MS. O’HARA: I have a question for Jodie. How is it that DPW came to be the oversight for construction contracts? And do you do construction contracts for other departments? MS. YANAGIHARA: It’s delegated actually from Finance, the chief procurement officer and it’s delegated to the Director of Public Works for all construction MS. O’HARA: Including construction done by other departments? MS. YANAGIHARA: Yes. So we handle construction contracts for Department of Environmental Management, Parks and Recreation, Housing and all of our Public Works. MS. CRAWFORD: One thing I would say is that I have, because as Director of Finance, and not that it started with me because the authority to handle the construction contracts has been delegated to the Public Works Director, or chief engineer, for a long time. But it’s because it’s kind of a specialized area. The other thing is that quite recently we, I included in my delegation authorization to the Director of Public Works the authority to further delegate to the Director of Environmental Management so they can do their own contracts. That was like I said very recently, that delegation. MS. NICHOLSON: So, you’ll have someone like Jodie in the Department of Environmental Management? MS. CRAWFORD: They do have a contract clerk. MS. YANAGIHARA: They have a contract clerk. MS. NICHOLSON: This is a question that will sort of demonstrate my ignorance of how this all works. So, if I am a department head and I want to buy 25 cases of copy paper, whatever. What do I do? Who do I talk through how a department determines what their needs are through their budgeting process. Then their budget is approved so okay, we have the money, now what happens? How do I acquire or how do I acquire a vehicle? Whatever it is I need to acquire for my department. What would happen? MR. BENEVIDES: Paper we carry downstairs in the Storeroom, so that wouldn’t be one that you’d put in a request for. (Just as an aside.) But on a vehicle for instance, we have a time schedule, three times per year, which all the departments are aware of where you can send in your requisitions for vehicles, and like time buying, desks, computers, whatever it is. And then in our office we take that requisition. We prioritize it with everything else that we have to do. We put together the like type items so we’re not putting out one bid for one computer in other words. By that due date, all the vehicles come in. We put out one passenger car vehicle bid. We put out a heavy equipment bid. And then we go through the process as indicated in this basic procurement process which is, if the intended or cumulative amount is over $25,000 then we would do an IFB, which is Invitation for Bid. And we would send it out to people who have participated in the past. Anybody who requests it. And of course once we post it we get a lot of request for it as well. So, to answer your question, the requisition comes in, we prioritize then we put out the bids based on a prioritized time schedule. 9