10/12/1988 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e State or local level. As a matter of practice, however, the City does go through some form of competitive selection process. Mr. Wong said as the Public Contracts Review Board, the council has chosen to exempt classes of contracts from the Public Contract Law bid process (e.g., library materials and objects of art). Mr. Wong said in Chapter 16 of the City Charter, the City Manager is given the authority to conduct the City's business in terms of procuring materials, personnel, etc. . . He said the council can be directly involved in the contract process through its involvement in the budgeting process, by establishing policies, and by requesting an audit to check compliance with the Public Contract Law. Mr. Wong said the audit recently requested by the council will occur for FY89 activities. Mr. Wong said the issue underlying the AFSCME letter has to do with whether services provided by corporations are done by staff or by contractor. He said the issue of whether a service is provided in-house or contracted out is a management decision and a budgetary decision. Mr. Wong said as part of an agreement with AFSCME, if the City were to consider contracting for a service currently being provided by staff, the City will notify AFSCME and discuss the consequences of the change on employees with the group. He said there have been very few instances of this in the last several years. Mr. Wong said before this step is taken, a detailed cost-benefit analysis is undertaken and staff looks at the quality of services. e Mr. Holmer asked if there is a City standard used to determine whether a particular service should be performed by staff. Mr. Wong said there is not a specific dollar threshold; staff does look at the margin between providing the service in-house versus contracting for it. He said if the margin were greater than 10-15 percent, staff would look seriously at the options. Mr. Gleason said staff constantly conducts cost-of-service analyses. Mr. Wong said liability issues as well as State and Federal regulations are also considered when deciding whether to provide a service in-house or contract for it. David Biedermann, Finance staff, said there are five major steps in any procurement process no matter how formal or informal cit is: defining the need, defining the marketplace, selecting the appropriate process for the procurement, carrying out the procedures, and executing the contract. Mr. Biedermann described the steps in a formal bid process. He said the first step is to define the need. This is done by meeting with those who will be using the product or who will be affected by procurement of the product. This helps ensure that the product will meet the needs of the users. Next, staff refines the wording of the specifications to be certain it reflects the type of product wanted. When the wording is refined, a requisition is issued. Mr. Biederman said that staff continually consults with suppliers at this stage of the process to find out what is available in the market and what products would best meet the City.s needs. e MINUTES--Eugene City Council October 12, 1988 Page 5