SAC CITY, IOWA JUNE 28, 2010
Currently The Sac City Council has a self imposed limit of $10,000 when considering whether to use a bidding process to purchase items or services. The State of Iowa’s limit is $75,000. On June 28, 2010 the council voted to raise the city’s limit to $50,000 with the option to self impose a lower limit on an item per item basis.
The procedure for putting into place that self imposed optional limit was not specifically spelled out before the end of the meeting.
What this higher limit will do is give the city administrator a freer hand for making larger purchases without prior approval from the council. A new $30,000 vehicle (for instance) can now just be a line item on the claims that some city council members don’t bother to read before approving. That said, other area city councils have something similar but unwritten procedure in place where the city administrators or clerks ask their councils specifically to sign off on the purchases of items approaching the threshold just to make sure no one has to embarrass themselves by being forced to admit that they “overlooked” (didn’t read) the claims sheet.
A positive aspect of this change is that it will free the city up from being legally compelled to accept a lowest bid scenario that they know will end in the contractor coming back with a costly change order. They will now be able to take that second highest bid in some cases should the lowest bid seem unrealistic.
Copyright (c)2007-2010 Curtis Bloes All Rights Reserved
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