By Kathryn Kretschmer–Weyland
July 14, 2008

Mayors received an update on their successful national cooperative purchasing program, U.S. Communities, at Monday’s plenary session. "Over 33,000 public agencies are now registered for the program; savings to public agencies has increased to over $350 million a year; and total program savings since the inception of U.S. Communities exceed $1 billion," reported Steve Swendiman, co-manager of the program. "Cities have led the way in environmentally sensitive purchasing, where over 35 percent of office supplies purchased in 2008 will be categorized as green," he stated.

Swendiman also cited specific savings by cities across the United States, highlighting savings in Anchorage, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Los Angeles, Miami, Colorado Springs, Atlanta, Miami Beach, Bowling Green, Minneapolis, Austin and Seattle. U.S. Conference staff members have individual city savings from the program for the past two years.

U.S. Communities now offers on-line access to all green products via a search feature on the web site. Public agencies can enter any product name or category and reference the various U.S. Communities suppliers that provide the product. This feature will continue to be enhanced to provide a searchable database for all products offered under contract.

For more information, contact Jeff Bean at jbean@usmayors.org or visit www.uscommunities.org.