Purchasing Process/Hillsborough County Public Schools

In order to find out the purchasing policies and procedures of the Hillsborough County Public Schools system I paid a visit to the General Manager of Procurement, Jean R. Bowman. She was kind enough to take thirty minutes out of her busy schedule to sit down with me and answer a few questions. To get a better understanding of how the whole process works we looked at an example of what is like to make a purchase with all of the schools in the county in mind.

Bowman thought the best case we could look at together would be the purchase of fire extinguishers, which was coded ITB # 8066-DST Fire Extinguishers. The ITB stands for invitation to bid on the purchase which is where we are going to begin. Bowman and her staff maintain a list of all potential bidders by category of commodity and include the names of all persons that request a placement on a particular bid. From that point sealed bids are requested for any single purchase of equipment or service that exceeds the bid amount specified in the State Board of Administration rules. These sealed bids shall be received at the time, date and place designated in the request for bids. Bids that are turned in after the designated time will not be accepted or considered. Each and every bid will be opened publicly by an employee of the school board and then the name of the bidder and the amount will be read aloud. Bowman then must evaluate the competing bids and make a recommendation to the school board for the award of the bid shall sign the tabulation. Under no circumstances will a bid be awarded to any bid other than the lowest and best bid from a quality bidder.

In the case of the fire extinguishers the invitation to bid originally came out on August fifth two-thousand and eight and had a due date of August nineteenth two-thousand and eight. The bid delivery location was the Hillsborough County Public County Schools Procurement Department at nine hundred and one East Kennedy Boulevard on the third floor in Tampa, Florida. All told there were five vendors bidding to provide the fire extinguishers to the Hillsborough County Public Schools. They were, listed in no particular order, as follows: A to Z Fire, All Florida Fire Equipment Company, Fire Master, Piper Fire Protection, and lastly Tampa Bay Fire Equipment, Inc. All of the vendors provided information and pricing on all twenty-eight items that were requested in the bid along with contact names and numbers to ask any questions about their offers. At the end of the day the lowest and best bid came from All Florida Fire Equipment Company out of St. Petersburg Florida. The final act to make this entire process official was for the Superintendent of schools, MaryEllen Eila to bring this to the Hillsborough County School Board for approval. That very thing happened on Tuesday October twenty first of two-thousand and eight. As business action item number five point thirteen came up the recommendation to accept the lowest and best bid of All Florida Fire Equipment Company came across the table and was accepted. The recommendation read that the bid was prepared at the request of the Safety and Risk Management Office to establish fixed pricing for the purchase and installation of the fire extinguishers. It also briefly talked about the money involved in this sort of project by noting the financial impact and saying it was budgeted and that approximately fifteen thousand dollars will be available in the Safety and Risk Management Office budget for the purchase and installation of the fire extinguishers.

In closing the experience actually taught me that there is a lot that goes into the process of working for a local government. While a person is asked to make buying decisions, they are also charged with the responsibility to not spend too much because the money they are responsible for is so precious. So while you want to buy the best you possibly can at the same time you are trying to save money for the other items you know are going to be needed down the line. I also had the experience of working with one of the most helpful people I have ever been in contact with in the government sector. Jean Bowman was so free and easy to work with she made asking questions and requesting documentation a breeze. In fact I have so many public records I probably have several more than I need but each and every one of them were very helpful in putting together this piece. In all I learned it is not easy to be in charge of the people’s money and make everyone happy at the same time, but I also learned despite that difficult task you can also be nice doing it.