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Consent

Brentwood City Commission Agenda

Meeting Date:	06/27/2022
Ordinance 2022-10 - 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 2022-10 - 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. Specifically, the updates will provide for increased thresholds for competitive bidding procedures.

Our Charter (state law) provides that formal sealed bids shall be obtained for all expenditures of an amount to be set by ordinance up to $10,000. In 2006, the Municipal Code was amended to raise the bidding threshold to this limit. Although other parts of the City's purchasing code have changed since then, the bid threshold has not because the state law limit has remained constant.

Although our Charter has not been changed, the Governor recently signed a new law which modified a different section of state law (Tenn. Code Ann. 12-3-1212). This change provides that regardless of any specific state law requirements, cities without centralized purchasing offices may increase the competitive sealed bidding threshold up to $25,000, with three written quotes being required for amount up to 40% of the threshold chosen.

Staff believes it is in the best interest of the City to amend the Municipal Code to increase the competitive bidding thresholds to the full amounts allowed by the recent state law change. Specifically, a formal publicly advertised bid process will be used for expenditures over $25,000. For purchases between $10,000 and $25,000, three quotes must be obtained, but they may be obtained informally by obtaining pricing from catalogs, electronic databases, email quotes, etc. These increased thresholds will greatly reduce the workload for staff in preparing formal requests for bids and agenda items. Please note that contracts above $10,000 will still be approved by the Board of Commissioners due to a limitation in the amount of the City Manager's contracting authority. Staff will work to pursue legislative change of the Charter to bring this delegated contracting authority in line with the increased allowable bidding thresholds.

If approved, the attached ordinance will update the existing dollar amount references in the purchasing code to be higher as permitted by state law. No other changes to the City's purchasing code are proposed.

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 2022-10 was unanimously approved on first reading at the June 13, 2022 meeting.

Fiscal Impact

Attachments
Ordinance 2022-10
Comparison
Signed Ordinance