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They’re called Joint Purchasing Agreements, and Illinois Municipal League Executive Director Brad Cole says they’re a great way for local governments to find taxpayers cost savings by banding together to get discounts for a variety of things.

“It could be regular supplies, it could be maintenance related to roads or construction, it could be vehicles.”

Cole says the state could partner with local governments to find even bigger cost savings.

“They do it right now for vehicle purchases, particularly squad cars for police departments. The state can coordinate these themselves and offer it to different municipalities or different organizations.”

Cole says the state could expand on current programs to join with local governments.

*** UPDATE *** From CMS…

Hi Rich,

I saw your post on joint purchasing and want to highlight efforts already taking place under the state’s Joint Purchasing Program.

CMS offers local governments and state agencies the opportunity to participate in the Joint Purchasing Program; this cooperative purchasing is designed to save time and money when purchasing many commodities, services and equipment. Both the state and local governments can benefit from this joint purchase structure. When bulk-purchasing power from multiple state agencies is enhanced by the increased sales volume added by local governments, we can push per-unit costs down.

Some examples of commodities and services offered include:

Automobile repair parts
Computer hardware and software
Defibrillators
Mowers and tractors
Rock salt
Vehicles

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Meredith Krantz

Deputy Director & Public Information Officer
Illinois Office of Communication and Information
Department of Central Management Services

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:01 pm

Comments

This sounds like a no-brainer.

Comment by ChicagoVinny Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:03 pm
Am I wrong, I thought the procurement code already allowed for this? I know it’s underutilized but I thought that the permission was there.

Comment by The Captain Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:06 pm
Captain, you are right. They do joint purchases for vehicles, rock salt, auto maintenance equipment (I think), mowers, defibrillators, and maybe a couple other things. In my experience, they’re a pretty good deal. I’ve worked with institutions to utilize the state ‘master contract’ for electric vehicle purchases and seen pretty significant discounts

Comment by Johnny Pyle Driver Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:10 pm
That would be great if the State had the public servants to put it together. Oh wait…Rauner dismissed the managers that knew how it’s done. Now we’ve got low payed recent college grads who are eager but have no idea how to pull something off like this. That is if you’re lucky enough to be with an agency that is staffed and not already working with a skeleton crew. Maybe you can ask the union folks who have been around forever and know exactly how it’s done? No?, why not? Oh, because you don’t trust those overpaid do nothing workers. Well, good luck with that then. Maybe the newbie won’t make too many mistakes. Just remember mustard not catsup.

Comment by Honeybear Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:16 pm
How is this not already happening?

Comment by Formerly Known As... Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:21 pm
This is old news. See master contracts at: http://www.purchase.state.il.us/ipb/master.nsf/frmMCViewFrameset?ReadForm&view=viewAllByAgency?OpenView&start=1&count=250

Comment by Mongo Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:23 pm
Unless these joint agreements tame the state’s procurement paperwork beast, municipalities will find any projected savings will be gobbled up by the increased staff time on their end. The additional time would be needed to comply with the ludicrous state paperwork and nonsensical forms.

Comment by Johnnie F. Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:34 pm
This is nothing new, it has been around for

decades. Sometimes it can save on some items,

sometimes not, as other suppliers have special

policies to match the price after they verify you

could order through state purchasing.

Comment by DuPage Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:35 pm
Joint purchasing cooperatives already exist in Illinois and have been producing significant savings for taxpayers for many years. The Northwest Municipal Conference, in partnership with the DuPage Mayors and Managers, South Suburban Mayors and Managers and the Will County Governmental League, have been jointly operating the Suburban Purchasing Cooperative (SPC) since 2007. Over 140 units of local government purchase through the SPC program.

Product offerings include police and fire vehicles, fuels, office and janitorial supplies, telecommunications service, public works equipment, liquid calcium chloride and other deicing products and administrative vehicles.

All units of local government along with non-for-profits are eligible to purchase off of the SPC contracts. For more information, please see the link below:

http://www.nwmc-cog.org/Suburban-Purchasing-Cooperative.aspx

Comment by Larry Bury - NWMC Deputy Director Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:35 pm
===This is nothing new, it has been around for decades. Sometimes it can save on some items, sometimes not, as other suppliers have special policies to match the price after they verify youcould order through state purchasing.

It also requires the state or the joint purchasing entity to bargain well. I saved 10 percent in Minnesota on our Cisco & HP equipment over our partner in Texas.

Comment by ArchPundit Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 12:47 pm
Was at a Transform Illinois workshop a couple of months ago. In one presentation, they showed a slide which said local governments in the Chicago area have been joint purchasing equipment and supplies and joint contracting various services since the 1960s.

Comment by GA Watcher Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 1:33 pm
This might have been helpful for Brad to know when he was mayor.

Comment by Spliff Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 1:39 pm
This does not always work out. CMS RFPs and goes through their bidding process. Then a contract rate is set on say Computer Parts & Accessories. By this time, the bids are six months old. What often happens, is State agencies try to spend as much out of petty cash, stringing purchases, so they can buy items at the less expensive price marked on the item on the shelf. If you go through the normal process, the computers and accessories are MARKED UP to the State Contract amount, which was probably a fair price…two years ago. This process does not work as advertised all the time. In the case of falling prices for Computers and Accessories it has always been a tool to OVERPAY in my experience.

Comment by Beaner Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 1:41 pm
It is a good idea, though it depends a lot on who’s doing the shopping on the items. Sometimes you can still find things cheaper on your own. Over the last few years, there have also been suppliers drop out due to the delay in getting paid.

Comment by Earnest Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 1:43 pm
I utilize some of the existing state contracts often, some are good but many are bad. For example the state has a hardware contract with Grainger, 99% of the time I can find the same items much cheaper. But as more and more vendors shut me down I’m forced to pay the higher price because they are the only company willing to due business with us. Its is getting worse every day. Two vendors cut us off yesterday one so far today. I’m quickly losing my sense of humor.

Comment by seenthebigpicture Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 1:45 pm
As a Certified Purchasing Manager (CPM) for over 20 years in both large Public and Private business entities, rarely do these JPAs save any funds over just good negotiating skills. The end up just being PR releases that hail big wigs with giant imaginary savings that may save miniscule amounts with a lot of extra paperwork.

There just isn’t much savings between 1000 pencils and a million pencils, because at a 1000 pencils there is not much gross margin.

JPAs are PR stunts.

Comment by Rufus Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 1:47 pm
Beaner has it right. CMS gets an OK price on last year’s model then delivers it a year late. Could work for rock salt but not so well for computers.

Comment by Sir Reel Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 2:01 pm
==—==== In the case of falling prices for Computers and Accessories it has always been a tool to OVERPAY in my experience.

Then they are doing it wrong–I get a decent discount and the new models are negotiated over in the contracts I use to keep them consistent.

======rarely do these JPAs save any funds over just good negotiating skills.

I could probably negotiate down to these prices, but if I’m making them regularly, the JPAs allow me to have a pre-negotiated price that is good, but also doesn’t make me go through the procurement process which saves labor costs. On a big purchase, I still will put something to bid to save money, but on those regular orders the amount of time to purchase networking equipment or computers I save a fair amount.

As I mentioned, it does mean you have to have a good bargaining effort on the front end–as I mentioned we saved 10% over Texas on the same equipment.

I don’t know Illinois procurement well enough to know whether that system is more like Texas or Minnesota.

Comment by ArchPundit Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 2:21 pm
=Illinois Municipal League Executive Director Brad Cole says they’re a great way for local governments to find taxpayers cost savings by banding together to get discounts for a variety of things.=

Ugh! Hey Brad, thanks for educating us on what the happenings are and what is new for 2003!
Schools have been using Cooperative (aka, interlocal, joint)purchasing for years and years.

A couple of benefits- 1) saves money 2) saves time- no need for public bid process since the cooperative takes care of all of the bidding requirements 3) more control especially as it pertains to quality. You choose the qualifying vendor. 4) for facility projects there are no cost over runs, the price is the price.

Brad, ever hear of the internet?

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 2:28 pm
Ask the DuPage communities how well the state purchase program for rock salt went a few years ago.

Comment by One of the 35 Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 3:13 pm
A power strip costs $50. The same one can be found on-line for $20 and at local stores for $25. Not all “master contracts” are good. Agencies must purchase through these “good” deals, but many are not good. On top of these “great” deals; agencies get the benefit of CMS by paying them through transfer payments. To do what??????? Bad deal for taxpayers.

Comment by NO_CMS_Fan Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 4:18 pm
As others have pointed out this is a long-standing program. It was going on when I got to CMS in
1991.

Comment by steve schnorf Thursday, Jan 21, 16 @ 4:27 pm