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Burleson staff proposes raising city manager procurement threshold to $100,000; council asked for direction
Summary
Staff proposed amendments to Council Policy 36 to raise the city manager's signing authority from $50,000 to $100,000, increase deputy city manager authority to $50,000, and streamline operational details into purchasing procedures; council discussed safeguards and transparency measures and asked staff to proceed for a March resolution.
City staff on Tuesday presented a package of recommended changes to Council Policy 36 and the related purchasing procedures and asked the Burleson City Council for direction.
Lauren C, deputy director of administrative services, presented the proposed revisions. The most notable change is a recommended increase in the city manager's signature authority from $50,000 to $100,000 and a corresponding increase in the deputy city manager's authority from $25,000 to $50,000. Lauren said the change is intended to streamline procurement and align Burleson's thresholds with several peer cities while retaining controls documented in the city's ERP and departmental approval workflows.
Staff also proposed removing operational-level details from the council policy (Policy 36) and placing them into a separate purchasing-procedures manual that can be updated without a formal council policy change. Other proposed changes include: standardizing initial deposit and reimbursement agreement language for PIDs, adding clearer emergency-purchase definitions and ratification language (emergency purchases exceeding $100,000 must be submitted to council for ratification as soon as practical under the Texas Open Meetings Act), and refining HUB search requirements to focus on the county where the work will be performed.
Council members asked about oversight and vendor reporting. Staff noted built-in safeguards in the ERP (Munis) and a published vendor payment report and said checks at department and director levels remain in place. One council member suggested language should refer to review by an attorney hired by the city rather than naming a specific in-house deputy city attorney; staff confirmed that revision was included in the redlines.
Staff will incorporate council feedback and return with a resolution seeking formal approval of Policy 36 amendments at the March 3 meeting, with subsequent updates to purchasing procedures to reflect council direction.
