On June 12, 2018, the Board of County Commissioners adopted Resolution No. 2018-295, which amended various sections of the Procurement Code, Chapter 21 of the Broward County Administrative Code, including increasing the bid award authority of the Director of Purchasing for "clean low" bids, i.e., bids in which no bidder has been determined to be nonresponsive or nonresponsible, no protests have been filed, more than one bidder has submitted a response, and no Commissioner has expressed an objection. Most bids are "straight bids," where the bid itself constitutes the contract. However, some bids have associated contracts that must be executed after the bid is awarded.
The June 12, 2018, amendment did not expressly authorize the Director of Purchasing to execute the associated contract where the Director of Purchasing has the authority to award the bid. The amendment proposed by this item would provide that express authorization, thereby permitting greater realization of the efficiencies achieved through the June 12, 2018, amendment. If the proposed changes are approved, the Director of Purchasing will have the authority to execute contracts in any amount resulting from "clean low" bids the Director is already authorized to award.
The County Attorney's Office is continuing to work on a comprehensive rewrite of the Procurement Code designed to, among other things, streamline and more logically organize the Code. |