Page 21 - The EDGE Summer 2025

PROCUREMENT

BY GARY BARKMAN
AZNIGP Cooperative Committee, Hard at Work

for All Public Entities
Gary Barkman

The Arizona Capitol Chapter of NIGP (AZNIGP) public entity may need.
has not truly taken the time to elaborate on the
usefulness of this committee, so let's take a look Another strong document that has worked well
at the several documents we've published for for us is called "The Cooperative Comparison
the benefit of our public procurement personnel Worksheet." This spreadsheet is a beast but
across the entire state. with valuable information from all of our
participating cooperatives throughout North
Our first document came to us with Thomas Peeler America, including Canada.
taking the lead, approximately 12 years ago. This
was known as our "Justification for Utilizing a The Cooperative Comparison Worksheet lists
Cooperative Contract." It was published as a a plethora of major players in the Cooperative
document for our own AZNIGP Cooperative Procurement process but with one major
Committee and later added as an "Exhibit A" in difference. We've asked our participants valuable
another document that was built and labeled as the questions that would help our local public entities
"NIGP Model Cooperative Procurement Program to decide if the Cooperative Process would hold
Master Process Guideline." This document is still up in Arizona. Our AZNIGP Organization does
used today, for newcomers to get their feet wet not endorse these cooperatives but rather brings
with some of the reasons one needs to consider the information to our public entities that helps
Cooperative Purchasing. them to perform a little due diligence for each of
their agencies/entities.
This Master Process Guideline, as we like to call
it, was created with the collaboration of several This is probably the most brutal document we
public entities/agencies throughout the state of have in the sense this document requires a lot of
Arizona covering State, County, Municipalities, work and follow-up when needing to get updates
K-12 School Districts, Higher Education, etc. for this information. Our committee is currently
working on updating this document and it should
"All of our documents created were be done soon, so please be patient and we'll share

done with collaboration of our public a document that will allow all of you to reap the
benefits of our committee's efforts.
procurement departments throughout
the entire state." One of the last documents I'll share is a document

that I discussed in my last article for the AASBO
It also highlights the Benefits of Cooperative Edge. We simply call it the Cooperative Contract
Purchasing and minimum requirements that each Check List for Public Entities. This document,

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