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Richland County committee approves procurement policy and fee schedule to send to full board
Summary
The county committee approved a consolidated procurement policy and summary fee schedule and agreed to forward the package to the full county board, with the caveat that a pending short-term rental fee will be inserted if adopted. Committee members pressed staff on cooperative procurement, authority levels and budgeted contracting provisions.
Richland County’s Executive & Finance standing committee voted Nov. 12 to approve a consolidated procurement policy and a summary fee schedule and to forward the package to the full county board for final action.
County staff told the committee the draft—prepared over several months with assistance from counsel—seeks to clarify county purchasing practice and fold prior board rules into a single policy and a separate fee-schedule appendix. “The intent of this policy really was to clarify how we’re doing business, and also to incorporate the items that were in the old rules of the board governing expenditures into this policy,” a county staff member said.
Supervisors asked several substantive questions before the vote. One asked whether the policy allows cooperative procurement (joint purchasing with other municipalities); staff said they had pulled the governing statute and would distribute it to the committee and that cooperative agreements are permitted but need not be embedded directly in the ordinance text. Another line of questioning focused on a provision that would allow the county administrator to sign certain professional-service contracts when the expenditure is specifically included in the approved budget. Staff clarified the administrator’s authority applies only to contract amounts and purchases already authorized in a budget line item and does not allow reallocating funds or committing unbudgeted expenditures.
Members also pressed staff on competitive-bidding thresholds and how routine, low-cost equipment purchases would be handled. Staff advised that the policy provides for open-market purchases for many small items while preserving formal quote or bidding requirements for higher thresholds.
The committee approved the policy package by voice vote and agreed staff will insert any short-term rental fee into the schedule if the board later adopts that ordinance. The vote moves the procurement policy and fee schedule to the full Richland County Board for final consideration.
What’s next: The full county board will consider the consolidated procurement policy and the fee-schedule appendix at its next meeting. Staff said minor formatting and a table of contents will be added before final publication.
