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Committee forwards $25M increase to Grainger citywide supplies contract as OCA seeks broader competition
Summary
The committee recommended forwarding an amendment to increase the city's W.W. Grainger industrial-supplies contract to a $32 million not-to-exceed amount, and OCA said it had expanded awards to multiple vendors to reduce reliance on a single supplier after pandemic supply-chain lessons.
The Budget and Finance Committee on Oct. 2 recommended the Board of Supervisors approve an amendment to increase the citywide W.W. Grainger industrial-supplies contract by $25 million, raising its not-to-exceed authority to $32 million.
Tara Namoyed, assistant director at the Office of Contract Administration, said the contract is a citywide, as-needed supply contract used by most departments for parts, tools and PPE. OCA used a cooperative solicitation (Sourcewell) that yielded many proposers and awarded multiple contracts (Grainger and others) to promote competition and supply-chain resilience. Namoyed said the average monthly spending on Grainger between 2019 and 2023 was about $530,000 and OCA split available pool authority evenly among five awarded contracts initially.
The Budget Legislative Analyst supported the amendment but flagged a systems-control issue: the city’s PeopleSoft financial system does not currently enforce Board approval limits automatically, and a review found encumbrances on the Golden Gate Petroleum contract exceeded its authorized Board amount. Controller’s office staff said a BI dashboard has been developed to present total PO amounts and related charges together and that the dashboard will be refined with the City Administrator’s Office.
Chair Chan said departments should be encouraged to use alternative suppliers from the awarded pool so the city benefits from competition; OCA said it will continue outreach to departments. The committee voted to forward the Grainger amendment to the Board with a positive recommendation.
