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Purchasing and EOC face calls to fix commodity codes and boost locally owned small business wins
Summary
Purchasing and the Equity & Opportunity (EOC) office presented data showing LOSB participation in county purchases is modest; community and commissioners urged improved vendor registration, commodity-code mapping, vendor education and process changes to increase local small-business awards.
The budget and finance committee debated procurement data and participation rates for locally owned small businesses (LOSBs). Purchasing Administrator James Glosser and Equity & Opportunity administrator Shep Wilburn presented transaction-level summaries showing that LOSBs accounted for a minority of total dollars spent though they represented a meaningful share of purchase orders under $50,000. Community advocates and commissioners flagged multiple operational issues: vendors registering with incorrect commodity codes, limited outreach and education for small firms, and procurement processes that can exclude qualified local firms before solicitations are issued.
Community advocate Danielle Inez told the committee LOSB firms are being “locked out” because commodity-code registrations and outreach are inadequate; she showed that a commonly cited “60%” LOSB figure in a purchasing slide is a misleading aggregation and urged the county to publish accurate, disaggregated participation figures. Commissioners asked for short-term fixes (step-by-step vendor registration guides, better default mapping of commodity codes in the vendor portal), medium-term system changes (ERP workflows that present relevant code options to vendors), and stronger performance metrics for departments’ LOSB spending goals.
Purchasing and EOC leaders agreed to provide a clearer set of data and a written set of recommended fixes. The county will pursue vendor education and consider procedural changes to boost competition for smaller contracts, while purchasing staff stressed they must follow department scope-of-work requests when selecting commodity codes for solicitations.
Why it matters: County procurement dollars are a major local market. Improving how vendors are registered and how solicitations are routed could expand opportunity for small and minority-owned suppliers, shifting economic benefits to local communities.
What’s next: Purchasing and EOC were asked to return with a detailed list of gaps, proposed solutions and responsible owners; commissioners requested the pair present refined data and suggested policy or technical fixes to the subcommittee and at upcoming budget hearings.
