The power of teamwork: Procurement teams take the lead on cooperative contracts

This article originally appeared in the Q4 issue of Government Procurement. 

One sign of the strong bonds among purchasing officials is cooperative purchasing, says Jeffrey Yates, business services director in Tucson, Ariz. “Those in the public procurement profession have always enjoyed a high degree of collaboration and support from their procurement counterparts in other public agencies, whether it is sharing a past solicitation, or providing a copy of their template, or offering up their ‘lessons learned’ in dealing with a procurement-related matter. So cooperative purchasing is a natural extension of that collegial bond between kindred procurement professionals.”

Yates notes, however, that being a lead agency on a cooperative contract is not about prestige. “Like everything in the public sector, it is another opportunity to serve. As a lead agency, we are able to serve our fellow public agencies by creating a contract that can be useful to other entities besides our own.”

Yates spells out what needs to be done to ensure that a contract will be of value to other agencies: “The process that was used to create that cooperative contract must be well-executed: the solicitation should be open and competitive, and the evaluation should be thorough and fair. As a lead agency, you know that every public agency that will consider piggybacking on your cooperative contract will be evaluating your contract against their ‘due-diligence checklist;’ therefore, you know that not only your contract, but also the process you used to create your contract, must stand up to that scrutiny.” Yates sums it up: “Every lead agency can take pride in knowing that they created a contract that can be of use not only to their agency, but to agencies all across the country.”

Several benefits flow to governments that take on the role of being a lead agency in a cooperative agreement. It’s a great way to develop knowledge in a product or market, says Pauline Yoder, COO of the Capitol Region Council of Governments (CRCOG). The council is a voluntary organization that initiates and implements programs of benefit to towns in the Hartford, Conn., region. The chief elected officials of 38 metro-Hartford municipalities guide the CRCOG.

“In a cooperative contract, the lead agency develops some subject matter expertise (depending on the commodity or service),” Yoder says. “In addition, for CRCOG, the primary result in being the lead agency is enabling member municipalities to act more efficiently and not have to re-invent the wheel for the items for which CRCOG performs the procurement.” One other benefit: through the CRCOG Purchasing Council, the CRCOG and participating members achieve meaningful economies of scale through the cooperative agreements.

Being the lead agency on any procurement requires a certain level of expertise on the commodity or service under consideration, says Ted Fosket, cooperative contract lead coordinator at NASPO ValuePoint. “This is especially true of cooperative contracts, given their size and the nature of the agreement.”

NASPO ValuePoint is the cooperative contracting arm of the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO), a non-profit group, made up of the chief procurement officials of all 50 states, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Territories. NASPO ValuePoint facilitates administration of the NASPO cooperative group contracting consortium for the benefit of state departments, institutions, agencies and political subdivisions, as well as other eligible entities including cities, counties, special districts, community colleges, universities and some nonprofit organizations.

Fosket adds that “there is a level of prestige when leading a NASPO ValuePoint cooperative contract because they are complex and very public. Being a lead state gives you the opportunity to showcase the expertise of your state procurement office, and your ability to coordinate, cooperate and collaborate with procurement professionals throughout the country.” He says that his group’s leads and sourcing teams also have great opportunities to grow their understanding of what end users at all levels of government, and throughout the country need, how a particular industry works, and how to use and apply analytics and benchmarking.

As a lead, procurement teams need to be competent, says Celeste Frye, co-founder and CEO of Public Works Partners LLC, a WBE/DBE/SBE-certified planning and consulting firm. “Being the lead agency on any procurement requires a certain amount of expertise on the commodity or service in question. This is especially true of cooperative contracts, given their size and the nature of the agreement. Since the goods and services provided through these contracts impact so many essential operations, from daily computer use at government agencies to construction, it is important that they be high-quality, sustainable, and cost effective.” Frye says lead agencies must know the industries and markets they are procuring from to develop solicitations that are responsive to governments’ needs.

“Acting as a lead agency and then managing those cooperative contracts creates networking opportunities with other government agencies for our commodity managers,” says Jeremy Meadows, program director at the Lead Agency Marketing Partnership (LAMP) at the University of California (UC), Office of the President.

UC mainly focuses on fulfilling the needs of its 10 campuses and six medical centers. “The breadth and complexity of our organization translates into complex sourcing events that usually result in the majority of government agency needs being met. We are honored to be in a position to help other government agencies with their sourcing needs and challenges; if a little prestige comes with that, it’s a bonus,” Meadows tells Government Procurement.

UC serves as lead agency on more than three dozen of OMNIA Partners’ Public Sector cooperative contracts. One of those contracts covers expedited mail, small ground freight, related products and services.

Lead agencies enjoy strong professional development benefits when associated with a cooperative contract for NASPO ValuePoint, says Fosket. “The lead will raise his or her level of knowledge by learning about procurement processes in other states or local public agencies through working with a sourcing team, subject matter experts and NASPO. The lead has an opportunity to participate in several industry meetings; and will most certainly become more marketable to their current agency and to any other public entity.”

In addition to working with national and regional cooperative organizations, local governments can take on the lead role in cooperative contracts by inserting cooperative language as a default in their solicitations and contracts. Agencies add this language to support other public entities and encourage local and diverse businesses to grow, says Mariel Reed, CEO and cofounder of CoProcure, which helps public agencies make informed and smart purchasing decisions.

“For instance, Pinal County, Ariz., includes cooperative language in its contracts and publishes these contracts on CoProcure,” Reed says. “These contracts see an average of over 40 views each week by other agencies. Pinal County makes its contracts cooperative to benefit its neighboring agencies, as well as the suppliers that are awarded contracts with the county.”

Advice for prospective lead agencies
Scour the municipal marketplace for products and services that are generally needed, says Yates. “For any agency that is considering creating a cooperative contract, I would recommend looking for a commodity or service that is common to most agencies. If your agency’s needs are too unique to your particular agency, they may be too specific to be useful to most other agencies.”

Make sure that your procedures and operations are carefully logged and tracked, says Keith Glatz, purchasing and contracts manager in Tamarac, Fla. “I would advise that a lead agency have their procurement and contracting process well-documented, and that you should make sure that you document your due diligence as well. Everything from the legal advertising to the sign-in form for your evaluation committee needs to be included in the documentation, as agencies wishing to use that agreement will need to validate that the process followed to solicit and award the agreement meets the competitive requirements for the majority of agencies that may plan to use the agreement.”

Tamarac has been a lead agency on an OMNIA Partners’ contract; Glatz’s agency also serves as a lead agency for the Southeast Florida Governmental Purchasing Cooperative, a regional cooperative effort.

Michael Keating is senior editor for American City & County. Contact him at [email protected].