Work with a client recently indicated the need to periodically review and update purchasing policies.  In this case, standard focus was on “products” and procedure for dealing with expenditures meeting a cost threshold.  The policy was fine but limited and did not directly cover the issue of “services” or an request for proposal process, rather than a simple purchase cost bid.  Involving board members in a work group to review bids above a certain threshold is fine, provided that the known cost surpasses the stated threshold.

Dealing with services is a bit murkier.  Say that your organization wants to purchase some financial review services.  You may know what the goals of this review are but you may not know what these types of reviews would cost.  What happens if your policy says to review purchases over $10,000 but you don’t know if bids for the services will surpass $10,000?  It is much easier for staff to research likely cost of certain products than a range of professional services, especially if the type of service sought has not been purchased before, is tailored to a specific analytical or technical assistance need or is simply an altogether rare type of service.

One idea is to consider the significance of the service being sought and the value of a higher quality screening and decision process that board involvement could bring, rather than focus on a cost threshold alone. In this case, policy and procedure language might cover the notion that “a bid review committee will be established to approve the RFP, review and rank bids when such review provides needed multifaceted perspectives when the proposals for services being sought are likely to have significant subjective aspects and where range of anticipated costs are uncertain.”

Comments

Add New Search

Write comment
Name:
Email:
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.22

3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."