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Council adopts purchasing policy, lowers staff procurement threshold to $25,000
Summary
The council reviewed the League of Oregon Cities purchasing policy, opted out of a separate local contract review board, and instructed staff to set the city administrator's purchasing authority at $25,000 with informal-quote thresholds to replace verbal quotes.
Staff presented Resolution Series 2024 No. 9 and the attached purchasing policy (model from the League of Oregon Cities) and explained the opt-out mechanism that allows smaller cities to have contracting decisions come to council rather than maintaining a separate review board. The model policy's default administrator authority was $100,000; council members debated lowering that threshold.
Council members raised liability and procurement-practice concerns and suggested specific thresholds. After discussion the Chair summarized the changes council preferred: lower the city-administrator spending threshold to $25,000, adopt a $2,500 informal written-quote floor for some solicitations, and remove verbal-quote allowances. "I'll make that 25,000," the Chair said, and council agreed to instruct staff to clean up the document and return it for formal adoption as noted. Members also discussed procurement categories such as public works (statutory bid thresholds) and surplus procedure.
