The Purchasing Department is responsible for the procurement of all goods and services required by City departments and agencies, with the exception of the Board of Education. The department also maintains a fixed asset inventory of all City owned vehicles, buildings, land equipment and infrastructure, consistent with an established dollar threshold. The duties of the Purchasing Department, consisting of a Purchasing Agent, an Assistant Purchasing Agent, and two Purchasing Clerks, is to work within the framework established by the City’s Code of Ordinances while striving to obtain the best value for each tax dollar spent.
The City’s new enterprise resource planning (ERP) financial software system, which went live in May 2013, has been well received by all end-using departments and has greatly improved the efficiency of the purchasing process. In conjunction with the new ERP system, the first phase of the new citywide document management system was rolled out in October 2013. This first phase included the replacement of all existing copiers, printers and fax machines with new multi-function devices. In addition to copying, printing and faxing, the new units also provide departments with the ability to scan and attach any supporting documentation to requisitions that they enter into the new ERP system. The second phase of the document management system involves the rollout of a very powerful software component, which will provide for a “paperless environment” and a great deal of functionality relative to document storage and retrieval.
During this past year, the Purchasing Dept. issued and administered approximately 4,000 purchase orders and 70 sealed bids which were notably above the average annual activity. Vendor participation remains excellent resulting in very favorable bid results. The City’s website (danburyct.qscend.com) and e-mail notification system continues to be very popular with vendors and other interested parties – registering 2,600 people on the website to date, which represents a 10% increase over last year.
The Purchasing Dept. continues to monitor cooperative government purchasing opportunities, and will participate whenever it is deemed to be in the best interests of the City of Danbury to do so.