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Consent

Brentwood City Commission Agenda

Meeting Date:	01/25/2021
Ordinance 2021-01 - An Ordinance to Amend Section 2-209 of the Code of Ordinances Relative to Purchases
Submitted by:	Kristen Corn, Legal
Department:	Legal

Information

Subject

Ordinance 2021-01 - An Ordinance to Amend Section 2-209 of the Code of Ordinances Relative to Purchases

Background

The accompanying ordinance will amend the Brentwood Municipal Code to provide updates to Section 2-209, Purchases. The changes presented in the ordinance will address some state law modifications, including a broad renumbering of the Tennessee Code relative to purchasing, and some other "housekeeping" provisions based on the current practice of the City.

As you know, state law provides that we must undertake formal competitive bid processes for expenditures over $10,000 with certain exceptions (e.g., sole source). The City previously fell under the guidelines of the Municipal Purchasing Law of 1983 ("MPL") which listed those. However, the law changed several years ago to exempt cities with certain charter and ordinance provisions regarding purchasing. Brentwood is one of those cities.

With that said, the law provides that even though a city is exempt, the bidding exceptions followed by that city must still substantially follow those provided by the MPL. Our code currently references the MPL and other since-renumbered statutes as our authority for certain bid exceptions. The proposed ordinance removes those obsolete references and lists the exceptions to competitive bidding provided for by state law that the City has adhered to for many years. These include:

Purchases made from State of Tennessee statewide contracts;
Purchases made pursuant to the GSA;
Purchases made by "piggybacking" on another local government's contract;
Purchases made from purchasing cooperatives;
Purchases of secondhand goods;
Sole source purchases;
Emergency purchases;
Purchases of services from a professional based on recognized competence and integrity; and
Purchases based on competitive sealed proposals.

Although these have been recognized and followed for many years, staff feels it will be beneficial to have them explicitly stated (and the procedures for each described) within the code.

One noteworthy modification is that the Board of Commissioners will have to provide prior authorization for the use of a competitive sealed proposal process. This process is used when qualifications, experience, or competence are more important than price in making a purchase. The request for such proposals will state the factors to be used to evaluate the proposals (which will include price) and state their relative importance. This addition to our code follows the state law which authorizes our use of this process.

The proposed ordinance makes no changes relative to the thresholds for bidding when price is the most important factor. A formal publicly advertised bid process must be used for expenditures over $10,000. For purchases between $4,000 and $10,000, three quotes must be obtained, but they may be obtained informally by obtaining pricing from catalogs, electronic databases, email quotes, etc. The proposed ordinance does add that bids should be submitted electronically unless otherwise provided by the City. This change is due to our new electronic bidding software. The proposed ordinance also provides that public notification may include online publication of bid announcements instead of the newspaper. Although there will still be times when newspaper publication is required (some transportation projects, for instance), staff feels that the use of internet publication will save time and money due to the strict submittal deadlines for printed publications.

Finally, the proposed ordinance provides more clear authority for the City Manager to reject all bids when necessary under certain circumstances--unreasonably high prices; error in the solicitation; cessation of need; unavailability of funds; or any other reason determined to be in the best interest of the City.

Please contact the City Attorney if you have any questions.

Staff Recommendation

Staff recommends approval of the accompanying ordinance on second and final reading.

Previous Commission Action

Ordinance 2021-01 was passed unanimously on first reading at the January 12, 2021 meeting.

Fiscal Impact

Attachments
Ordinance 2021-01
Signed Ordinance