Staff recommends City Council approve the resolution to adopt the City's Purchasing Policy.

City staff has been tasked with conducting a thorough review of the contract solicitation procedures across all departments, with a particular emphasis on professional services. The aim is to deliver consistent recommendations for Citywide implementation. During this analysis, it was identified that the City’s previous policy document had been mistakenly repealed. The proposed resolution will serve as its replacement.

Purpose: The goal of the Purchasing Policy is to provide clear directives for City staff to ensure maximum value for expenditures associated with the acquisition of all goods and services to comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws; and, to establish procedures for implementation of the Policy through an Administrative Order. As requested, a draft of the Procedures is attached.

Key Changes to the Procedures:

1. A Request for Qualifications process from which the short-listed firms may submit a project-specific proposal.
   • This will occur at least biennially; or as permitted by Federal regulations, with a minimum frequency of once every five years.
2. A Request for Proposals process specific to Architectural, Engineering and Land Surveying services, which shall include a scoring matrix, but price may not be requested and will be negotiated with the selected firm.
3. A standard Request for Proposals process, including a scoring matrix, as well as a sealed price matrix.

Additionally, the Purchasing Procedures are made available on the City's website within the Finance Department at https://www.billingsmt.gov/finance, however the policy document was not easily located if the search contained the word "policy."  Once adopted, staff will place both the Policy and Procedures in appropriate locations on the website, to make them more easily located via the search function.

Considerable input was received by City staff, as well as a focus group of seven individuals from the local architectural and engineering community. That feedback has been incorporated into a revised Purchasing Procedure manual, which will be adopted by Administrative Order.

City Council may:

• Approve the Resolution to adopt the Purchasing Policy; or,
• Not Approve the Resolution to adopt the Purchasing Policy and provide further direction to staff.

The adoption of this resolution will not directly affect City finances. 

Staff recommends City Council approve the resolution to adopt the City's Purchasing Policy.