PURCHASING/City reaches more vendors with online bid service
In an effort to increase the pool of vendors for government contracts, New Port Richey, Fla., has begun using an online bid notification system. The online system supplements the city’s traditional methods of soliciting bids, which limited opportunities to local vendors.
Until recently, the city only advertised projects up for contract by running notices in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper and by placing bulletins on an information board in City Hall. However, the Finance Department wanted to make sure it was reaching the broadest possible audience and getting the best possible deals, says Kathleen Brewer, purchasing specialist for New Port Richey.
In January, the city of approximately 16,000 residents began to post information about projects up for bid on the Web site of Seattle-based DemandStar by Onvia. Vendors that subscribe to the service are notified by e-mail or fax when projects that match their businesses are posted.
New Port Richey does not pay any fees to use the system. Instead, the system charges subscription fees to vendors who want to receive project notifications from government agencies. The fees depend on the number of government agencies in the geographical area from which the vendors choose to receive notifications. Vendors can receive notifications from government agencies in individual counties, metro areas, states, regions or the entire nation.
The service allows governments to post bid application documents on the Web site so that vendors can download them, but New Port Richey chooses not to do so. (Acrobat Reader software is required to both post and download the documents.) Instead, interested parties are instructed to contact the city directly. “I like to screen the vendors a bit, see that they’re serious about the project and figure out exactly what their capabilities are,” Brewer says. If the conversation proves satisfactory, the city will send the vendor the necessary documents.
Because New Port Richey began using the service at the first of the year, its impact is hard to determine, Brewer says. But, the service has yielded some positive response for the city. As of mid-May, the city was roughly two weeks away from a deadline for vendors to bid on a contract to provide a portable diesel generator for the Public Works Department. At that point, about 15 subscribers to the online service had contacted New Port Richey to request bid applications. Such a bid ordinarily would have generated a maximum of 10 requests, Brewer says.
