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Riley County approves centralized Amazon Business account to consolidate purchasing
Summary
After an Amazon Business presentation, the Riley County Commission voted to establish a single county Amazon Business account to centralize purchasing, reduce duplicate Prime fees, improve tax-exemption handling and add emergency-procurement capabilities; staff will sign a domain-registration DocuSign to proceed.
The Board of Riley County Commissioners on June 15 approved establishing a master Riley County Amazon Business account to consolidate roughly 22 separate department-level Amazon accounts into a single, managed platform.
Britney Phillips, Riley County budget and finance officer, introduced the item and said department heads favored a centralized account with approvals and reporting. "Department heads were very much in favor of having one account with approvals," Phillips said.
Manny Poya, an Amazon Business government advisor, told the commission the county currently had about $111,000 in annual spend across 22 accounts, 49 active users and roughly $16,675 of retail amazon.com purchases placed on purchase cards that lack business-account controls. "Right now we're paying that seven times," Poya said, referring to duplicate Prime or membership costs across accounts. He said consolidation would provide quantity discounts, centralized tax-exemption propagation and better visibility into purchases.
Poya outlined a structure that preserves department autonomy while centralizing administration: each department (for example, the Sheriff's Department or IT) could have its own group and approval workflow, with department heads defining approvers and purchase thresholds. He said Amazon will allow "window shopper" roles that can build carts but require administrative approval before purchases complete.
To collect baseline data, Amazon offered to waive Prime membership fees for Riley County's first year on the consolidated account and to add a rebate tier (1–3%) that could offset future membership costs. Phillips said Michelle Adams, senior fiscal analyst, has been proposed as the county's Amazon account administrator and that staff would register the county's domain name via DocuSign to prevent future use of government email addresses for personal accounts.
A commissioner moved to approve establishing the master Riley County Amazon Business account. The motion was seconded and passed by voice vote.
The commission directed staff to complete the DocuSign registration and begin consolidation work. Phillips said the county will migrate purchase histories into the master account and perform onboarding and recorded buyer training. No details about a formal Prime membership renewal or specific savings estimates beyond the reported spend were required for immediate approval.
Next steps: staff will sign the DocuSign domain registration, build the account structure with department heads, and return budgetary or policy details as needed.
