Buy Local -- You Too

As we Commissioners often remind our citizens to “buy local”, the same philosophy should be encouraged by our county’s purchasing efforts.

Unfortunately, as a board, we do not use that same “by local” thought when we award contracts. I believe we should give local consideration, and I have often raised that subject as an issue. More than once, I have opposed awarding a particular contract to an out of county vendor over a local vendor. The following explains why.

Our county code (public law) which can be found at: http://ecode360.com/CA1802 is our guide which I believe we commissioners need to adhere to all of its requirements, not just a part. We too often focus upon awarding competitive bidding contracts based upon one part of that code.

Extracted from § 6-101. Competitive bidding. [1985, ch. 715, § 2; 1989, ch. 69]

(a); we seem to focus solely upon one part, namely: “..the contract shall be awarded at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Commissioners or by the official authorized to contract for the county to the lowest responsible bidder meeting Specifications...”

However, it’s that “lowest responsible bidder” portion that often puts us in a situation where for as little as a difference of $1.00, a contract may be awarded outside the county over a Calvert County company who employs Calvert citizens. Not only does that seem intuitively wrong and illogical, it also reflects that we are not doing our due diligence.

Looking elsewhere within that same part of the county code, paragraph (c) states, “(c) In determining the “lowest responsible bidder,” in addition to considering price, the Commissioners or the official authorized to contract for the county shall consider: (1) The ability, capacity, and skill of the bidder to perform the contract or provide the

service …and (7) Any other information that may have a bearing on the decision to award the contract.

Note, (7) for which we as commissioners “shall consider” as in we must; we are required to consider “other information”. To simply accept the recommendation by the staff based solely upon “lowest responsible bidder” indicates we are not awarding contracts as guided by our own law.

While I am not suggesting that “other information” such as “Local Preference” be established which some other counties do employ, I am confident that some criteria could be created (i.e., if the vendor a local county business, number of county citizens it employs, etc.) which as “other information” could at a minimum ensure that local vendors are given “Local Consideration”.

This can be implemented, and should have, could have been done so without changing the law.