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By Bill Munch, CPPO, CPPB

Written Determination and Rationale for

Cooperative Purchasing at School Districts

Last year’s legislative session included a law that requires
school districts to provide rationale when choosing specific We have been working on best practices and
cooperative contracts. Based upon that statute, the procurement justifications for cooperative purchases for
rules require a written determination to include that rationale.
In a previous article in The Edge, I stated that districts are years. Our work is very reflective of the new
now required to provide a rationale when selecting vendors on rationale determination requirements. Our
a cooperative contract. This will be an additional step in your
due diligence process. The rationale must be in writing. Your best practices documents have been developed
documentation should state the thought process for selection with the input of procurement professionals
of the vendor in two or three sentences at a bare minimum. A
checklist of possible items could also be helpful. across state, county, municipalities, and school
Documenting three quotes from a cooperative or multiple districts in Maricopa County. The best practices
cooperatives in the form of a written determination and justifying
the selection based upon the quotes obtained would certainly our committee developed will help school
comply with the requirement. However, there is no specific districts with ideas for compliance and give
requirement to obtain quotes from cooperatives and should
only be considered as a best practice recommendation. The most other public entities tools to make the best
important thing is to provide a written justification on just how decisions related to cooperative purchasing.
your district chose the particular cooperative vendor contract.
I serve on a Cooperative Purchasing Committee with the 3. Our committee surveyed more than 30 public purchasing
Arizona Capitol Chapter of National Institute of Governmental cooperatives across the country and got general responses back to
Purchasing (NIGP) that AASBO’s own Gary Barkman chairs. help you analyze all these coops that are out there.
We have been working on best practices and justifications for All of this information is available on the NIGP Capitol
cooperative purchases for years. Our work is very reflective Chapter website at https://www.aznigp.org/insidepages/
of the new rationale determination requirements. Our best contracts/. There are five links at the top of this page to
practices documents have been developed with the input of everything in cooperative purchasing that I mentioned above.
procurement professionals across state, county, municipalities, The documents present cooperative purchasing
and school districts in Maricopa County. The best practices our perspectives and are by no means meant as comprehensive
committee developed will help school districts with ideas for adopt “as-is” documents. Rather, the documents and
compliance and give other public entities tools to make the best information at this website were created to give public
decisions related to cooperative purchasing. procurement professionals tools and ideas for strategic
The Cooperative Committee has drafted and worked on various implementation of cooperative purchasing within a school
cooperative purchasing best practice projects. The topics include: district or other public entity. The documents are a great
1. A Model Procurement Program Best Practice document “starting-point” if you want to create similar documents for
including how to incorporate cooperative purchasing into your your entity. A strategic approach to cooperative purchasing
overall procurement strategy and a sample justification form will lift the professionalism of public purchasing and
to help you justify to your board why you used a coop contract ultimately form the basis for doing what is “right” and in the
versus doing your own bid. best interests of the entities that we serve.
2. We also created a “Coop Contract Checklist” that If you have questions about the information at the website,
outlines best practices for determining which coop contract contact me and I will talk you through any of the information therein.
your district should choose. The ideas in the checklist
will definitely help you in your quest to complete written Bill Munch, CPPO, CPPB is the Procurement Compliance and
determinations for your coop contracts. Our committee had Training Officer for Valley Schools Management Group, recipient
no idea this type of rationale would become a school district of the 2018 AASBO Bill Lovett Award and the 2016 NIGP National
requirement by law, but the document is a perfect fit to the Purchasing Manager of the Year. He may be reached at: bmunch@
requirement. vsit.org.

SPRING 2019 | THE EDGE 25