COLDSPRING — The Coldspring City Council will now participate in the BuyBoard local government cooperative.
The group approved participation at the Aug. 3 meeting.
Coldspring Mayor John Benestante said that when he was with a state agency, it was a member of the state purchasing cooperative.
“It takes all the guesswork out,” Benestante said. “They go out, solicit bids, they give you qualified bidders, and you come in like we do, notify those bidders of our projects.”
The Texas BuyBoard Purchasing Cooperative reportedly streamlines the purchasing process for schools, municipalities, and other public entities in Texas and bypasses certain RFP requirements.
The Local Government Purchasing Cooperative was created to enhance the purchasing power of government entities and to simplify their purchasing by using a customized online purchasing system, called the BuyBoard.
“There is power in numbers, and BuyBoard has delivered the vast economies of scale in purchasing products and services to members since 1998”, according to BuyBoard.
Coldspring states that the agreement will help facilitate compliance with state procurement requirements; identify qualified vendors of commodities, goods and services; relieve the burdens of the governmental purchasing function; realize the various potential economies, including administrative cost savings, for Cooperative members.
Benestante said that one of the sole purposes of joining this cooperative was to receive price deductions for new playground equipment.
“The reason for this and the next (agenda items) has to do with getting on the BuyBoard to get discounts on the playground equipment,” Benestante said.
In other business, the council:
