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West Warwick council adopts updated purchasing policy tied to annual CPI adjustments
Summary
The West Warwick Town Council approved a revamped purchasing policy to align with state procurement guidelines and to index purchasing thresholds annually to a Boston-area CPI benchmark, intended to give the town more flexibility and reduce advertising burdens.
The West Warwick Town Council on Jan. 6 approved a revised town purchasing policy designed to follow state purchasing guidelines and to update dollar thresholds annually using a Boston purchasing-group CPI index. Speaker 4 introduced the resolution as a revamped policy that raises the town’s procurement thresholds and applies a yearly CPI adjustment.
Speaker 4 said the update builds on action taken last November and will "increase yearly" the dollar amounts that trigger different procurement rules. Speaker 5 said previous thresholds were "certainly lower" and that the change gives the town more flexibility and could mean fewer required advertisements for purchases. No statutory citations were presented during the discussion.
The council approved the resolution by voice vote. No specific vote tally was recorded in the meeting record. Speaker 1 later noted a separate procurement item for gasoline and diesel that councilors deferred to the next meeting because staff (Jeff) will take action then.
The change directs staff to implement the revised thresholds and to apply the cited CPI index each year; the council did not discuss an exact effective date in the public discussion on Jan. 6.
