By
November 21, 2011

There are many purchasing cooperatives in existence, but the Conference of Mayors sponsors only one – U.S. Communities. What differentiates U.S. Communities from other regional and national programs? The answer lies in seven unique components of the program:

1 The lead public agency model: U.S. Communities initiated the use of a lead public agency as its model from its first contract offering in 1998. Each contract offered by the program has been publicly solicited by a large lead public agency on behalf of all other local and state agencies in the United States. Each lead public agency takes responsibility for structuring the bid documents, assembling a national team of experts to review responses, documenting the bid tallies and awarding the contract to one or more qualified firms. A master inter-local government agreement provides access to each of these contracts by public agencies across the country.

2 The public agency oversight model: U.S. Communities provides program oversight and compliance with professional public procurement standards through its advisory board. The board consists of 22 public procurement professionals representing cities, counties, schools, higher education and state government. Each member serves a three-year term. Each appointed member must have the authorization of its public jurisdiction to serve.

3 Lowest cost to government commitment: Prior to the award of a contract to a supplier, the supplier must agree to specific terms and conditions. A key commitment is that the offering is the lowest priced offering the supplier provides to the government sector.

4 Program audits: U.S. Communities provides internal and third-party audits of the contracts on the program. Each year, seven or eight contracts are audited by a third party independent auditing firm for compliance with contract pricing, terms and conditions.

5 Contract benchmarking: U.S. Communities uses benchmarking to validate its best pricing guarantee. Benchmarking is done against another large contract held by a U.S. Communities supplier, against a contract held by a competitor of a U.S. Communities supplier, against results of a bid process, and against retail pricing in the marketplace.

6 Significant savings at no cost to public agencies: All 20 U.S. Communities contracts are offered without fees or costs to participating public agencies and non-profit organizations. Registration is free and public agencies are not required to commit to minimum amounts of purchasing. Agencies can use the program as frequently or as little as they desire. Over 45,000 public agencies currently participate, adding up a savings of over $300 million annually.

7 Professional association sponsorship: U.S. Communities was cofounded as a public benefit cooperative by The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, the National League of Cities and the Association of School Business Officials in order to assist public agencies in procuring goods and services on a cooperative basis. Over 70 state associations of cities, counties, schools and purchasing groups endorse or sponsor the program at the state level. This overwhelming sponsorship by professional government associations strengthens the value of the program and assures significant oversight for program participants.

To learn more about U.S. Communities, to register for a webinar, or to read about specific contracts, visit the website www.uscommunities.org. You may also contact Kathryn Kretschmer-Weyland with the Conference of Mayors at kweyland@usmayors.org, or Jeannie Fanning at jfanning@usmayors.org.