Commissioners will consider updates to Hamilton County's purchasing rules this week that would raise the threshold for competitive bids and proposals from $25,000 to $50,000, a move that one member decried as "government creep."
County Finance Director Lee Brouner said Nov. 30 that a May change in state law allows local governments to make that adjustment to their procurement rules.
The commission is scheduled to consider the change during its regular meeting at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday on the fourth floor of the Hamilton County courthouse, 625 Georgia Ave.
"It would create a significant amount of efficiencies both in our procurement department and throughout all of county government," Brouner told commissioners. "All of the divisions have basically overwhelmingly supported this for being able to get the items that they need as quickly and efficiently as they possibly can."
(READ MORE: Hamilton County OKs purchase of 19 acres at former Cigna facility for new school)
The threshold requiring public advertisement and competitive bids or proposals would rise from $25,000 to $50,000 for nonemergency purchases, according to a copy of the resolution. The county would also require at least three quotes for purchases between $12,500 to $49,999, an increase from the current range of $2,500 to $24,999.
Purchases less than $50,000 would be awarded by the director of procurement, the resolutions states, and those over that total would be presented to the County Commission for its approval.
"Currently, we're just so far behind the times on these thresholds," Jerald Carpenter, the county's director of procurement, told commissioners Nov. 30. "Twenty-five thousand dollars 10 years ago is not what $25,000 is today. The effect of that is as prices of things go up, it causes more work on our department."
Most similar-sized cities and counties have already made that adjustment, Carpenter said, including Shelby, Anderson and Knox counties and the cities of Knoxville, Memphis and Chattanooga. The Hamilton County school board is waiting to see how the commission acts, Carpenter said.
"We're kind of behind the eight ball on this as far as the other entities in the state," he said.
Commissioner Warren Mackey, D-Lake Vista, argued the change would result in less oversight of the purchasing process.
(READ MORE: Think tank blasts Hamilton County's purchase of farmland for industrial park)
"On several levels, I don't like this," Mackey said. "It creates opportunities for buddyism when you have less need to bid or compete. It's too much government. ... It's government creep -- government getting more powerful, bigger, more controlling. It scares me."
Commissioner Jeff Eversole, R-Ooltewah, also had reservations about the increase.
The citizens of his district "voted me in to be an ambassador for their tax dollars -- where it's being spent and how it's being spent," he said. "We're going into a time in the economy when things are getting tougher, so we're going to have to be more frugal than ever."
Contact David Floyd at dfloyd@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6249. Follow him on Twitter @flavid_doyd.