Board hearing on purchasing restructure: director’s role proposed for elimination; purchasing staff warn of compliance risks

Berkeley County Schools administrators told the board at a public hearing that the district plans to eliminate the standalone director of purchasing position and absorb purchasing responsibilities into existing operational and federal-program structures as part of a phase 2 central-office reorganization. The administration said the change is intended to increase efficiency and redirect savings to classrooms.

Administration materials entered as exhibits described a shift that would retain a buyer and a secretary but remove the director-level role. The administration said the restructured model would place procurement oversight inside existing programmatic leadership so that purchases better align with instructional and operational priorities while remaining compliant with purchasing regulations. "This restructure consolidates purchasing responsibilities into existing district office structures, ensuring more responsive service and greater alignment with instructional and operational priorities while maintaining full compliance with purchasing regulations," an administration representative said when entering the draft organizational chart and purchasing rationale into the record.

Purchasing staff and the department’s presenter pushed back at length. The purchasing presenter (addressed in the hearing as "Mr. Davis") gave a detailed description of the department’s work, compliance responsibilities and tools and said the department manages roughly $93,000,000 in spend (FY24) and processes about 4,000 purchase orders a year. He described legacy systems that complicate modernization — including the West Virginia Education Information System (WVEIS), a mainframe-based system — and urged adoption of an electronic requisition/procure-pay system (referred to as ESM or SoftDocs by the presenter) and an expanded staffing model. "In my 3 and a half years here, I've always obtained a lower cost getting quotes; competition helps us save money so we can use that other money to help with the students," the presenter said, describing examples in which competitive solicitation and co-op use reduced prices. The presenter recommended hiring at least two more buyers and implementing a modern procure-pay system rather than eliminating the director position.

The presenter gave examples of operational savings and risks: centralized purchasing has identified overspends and saved money on commodities (copy paper example and headphone procurement), and the department maintains vendor registrations and federal compliance processes (CFR 2 200 and state procurement requirements were discussed). The presenter also said training 32 schools and dozens of staff to process their own purchase orders would push thousands of purchase-orders back onto the district office and could create processing bottlenecks and compliance exposures.

Board members asked specific questions about who would assume procurement leadership (administration said an existing coordinator would take on oversight, funded in part by federal funds), whether buyers and secretaries would remain in place, and how the district would implement modern electronic requisitioning. Administration said buyer and secretary positions would continue and be relocated to support work with executive directors for elementary and secondary schools; the coordinator with purchasing responsibility would be split-funded between federal and district resources. The administration repeated its estimate that combined central-office restructures will save nearly $1.5 million annually.

The purchasing presenter urged the board to keep the department intact or expand it to at least five staff to handle the existing and projected workload, to implement electronic procurement (ESM), and to preserve the oversight that helps ensure federal and state compliance. The hearing closed with the administration reminding attendees that the board would vote at a later meeting; no vote took place during the hearing.