The Holbrook City Council held a budget work session and a brief special meeting last week where they approved an amendment to the city code regarding Article 1-4 Purchasing Policy. Council members Arcenia Pacheco and Roxanne Pergesen were not present.
The item was presented by City Manager Randy Sullivan who stated that the purchasing code had not been substantively updated since 2012. The request was to increase the threshold dollar amount for budgeted items that is required to bring purchases before the council for approval. It was noted that staff must frequently defer time-sensitive or routine procurement decisions to council agendas, even when such purchases are already budgeted and non-discretionary.
It was noted that comparable municipalities have modernized their purchasing policies to delegate reasonable purchasing authority to staff while maintaining fiscal controls, transparency and oversight and that the absence of similar updates in Holbrook places an unnecessary administrative burden on both staff and the council.
The approval changes the purchasing policy so that a staff instead of having to go before council for budgeted purchases of more than $50,000 the limit has been raised from a threshold of $10,000.
Councilmember Robert Black expressed his opposition to the change stating, “The city council has very little control over anything anymore. We get blamed for a lot of stuff but we don’t have control over a lot of stuff.”
Councilmember Pack countered by stating she didn’t think it was about relinquishing anything. “We only meet once a month so that’s what would put him back from being able to make a purchase order,” she stated, referring to the city manager. The vote passed with Mayor Kathleen Smith, Vice Mayor Mike Nilsson, and council members Teri Tafoya and Pack in favor with Black voting against.
