By Kathryn Kretschmer-Weyland
January 16, 2006

The U.S. Communities cooperative purchasing alliance, which the United States Conference of Mayors is a national sponsor, has long enabled cities and other public agencies to combine their purchasing power in order to obtain greater savings on goods and services. The program offers a wide array of goods and services ranging from office and school supplies and furniture, to technology products, janitorial supplies, carpet and flooring, office machines, park, playground and P.E. supplies and equipment, and most recently homeland security solutions. Effective January 2, the program now offers a new contract available through long-time vendor Office Depot for office and school supplies.

Advisory Board member Los Angeles County awarded the comprehensive new contract, which will provide improved pricing and a much more comprehensive range of classroom and office supplies. Office Depot has added increased their classroom offerings by over 70 percent, while overall core-list pricing has been improved by 3 percent-12 percent. Additional services such as copy and print services are now included in this contract, providing greater value. These services are now available from Office Depot retail locations to participating agencies. There is also a new 800-page catalog of promotional products.

This Office and Classroom Supplies contract is the result of an extensive evaluation of several proposals. U.S. Communities contracts are competitively solicited by a lead public agency, utilizing the combined purchasing power of all agencies that will eventually be able to piggyback onto the contract. The evaluation team for this contract included a cross section of public agencies from around the country and several have indicated that overall savings may be as much as 10 percent due to product expansion and pricing improvements.

U.S. Communities encourages both long time users of the Office Depot contract and agencies new to the program to explore the savings and service offerings through this new contract. As a national sponsor of U.S. Communities, The United States Conference of Mayors encourages cities to explore savings available them through the Office Depot and all of the non-exclusive contract offerings of this program. For more information, contact Katie Logisz with the Conference of Mayors at 202-861-6739 or send e-mail to klogisz@usmayors.org. Information is available online by visiting the cooperative purchasing link at www.usmayors.org or visiting www.uscommunities.org where agencies can register for the program online.