Mesa is home to Arizona’s largest school district — and a whopping $130 million worth of annual purchasing power for items ranging from lunch food to computers to athletic equipment.
That money can go to local businesses or faraway companies, but school officials have decided more of its funds need to be spent closer to home.
A new buy-local initiative will help bolster the city and the state’s economy, said Bill Munch, purchasing director for the Mesa Unified School District. The district has just announced it and is rolling it out in the next few weeks.
“I felt it was important for the school district to seek out local vendors to keep money in the local community where we can,” Munch said.
The focus is on purchases less than $50,000, which do not require competitive bids. Purchasing specialists will have marching orders to contact local businesses first to determine if they can meet the district’s needs. The district will have a list of members of the Mesa Chamber of Commerce to begin with, but other Arizona businesses will be contacted as well.
To help businesses, the chamber will hold workshops to train businesses on doing business with the district. Also, workshops will help businesses understand the bidding process for contracts more than $50,000. Munch said more businesses would compete if they knew how to navigate the system.
“Those documents are not scary,” he said. “We can explain it to them and answer any questions that they have.”
Mesa chamber President Peter Sterling said he expects to train district purchasing agents in a few weeks. After, the chamber will train businesses so they understand a process that might be foreign to them.
“Sometimes government is hard to do business with and some people have a stated policy of not doing business with governments because it’s so hard or costly to get a bid in,” Sterling said.
Munch initiated the buy-local idea with the chamber and said he sees more potential. He’s on the board of the Arizona Association of School Business Officials and will work with other districts to encourage similar buy-local initiatives. He said he opposes having criteria that would give extra weight to local businesses when comparing vendors and said non-Mesa businesses sometimes will win out because of better service or pricing.
Munch didn’t have an estimate of how much the district spends locally. The district is researching that as it builds a formal program around the initiative.
Sterling said he considers the district’s approach entrepreneurial and opposes any criteria that gives local businesses an edge.
The chamber has nearly 1,000 members and estimates Mesa is home to 17,000 businesses.
Mesa purchases items that include consulting services, audiovisual equipment, photocopiers, printing supplies, athletic equipment, textbooks and computers.
“We by a ton of food,” Munch said. “We get truckloads of food everyday for 62,000 students.”
• Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com
Contact writer: (480) 898-6548 or ggroff@evtrib.com
gilbertwatchdog posted at 8:27 pm on Tue, Mar 13, 2012.
As usual, the devil (in political announcements like this) is in the details.
At first glance, this "local first" announcement sounds great for east valley business owners (and especially for Mesa business owners), but just like the State of AZ proclamations about bids below "X" amount need at least one WOSB bidder "when applicable" those two words virtually eliminate all real opportunity.
Let's examine Mesa's proclamation to see if it is a "empty proclamation" as well.
Mr. Munch announces that he "opposes having criteria that would give extra weight to local businesses when comparing vendors" and adds that "non-Mesa businesses sometimes will win out because of better service or pricing".
Ever wonder why, Mr. Munch?
Many states (and local agencies) have a local vendor first preference, but not the State of AZ or Mesa Schools. Right off the bat that means that a vendor from outside AZ doesn't have to concern themselves with that pesky State of AZ tax, Maricopa County tax, and yes Mesa local taxes.
That eliminates 9.05% from their cost (compared to a local Mesa vendor). Any wonder why Amazon is willing to fight so hard to convince our state government that (even though they have multiple warehouse locations in the Phoenix area) they (Amazon) should not be considered a local company that has to collect local sales tax? Amazing their abilility to win more business when one business is tax exempt and another has to charge an extra 9.05%, isn't it?
Gee, Mr. Munch, I'd really be impressed if you could tell us the number of times companies (outside of AZ) have won your business with a higher price (but better service). I'd bet that would be a very short list indeed.
If local residents (and business owners) are the source of revenue (through their various taxes), what's the harm in actually helping those local folks with real incentives? At least eliminate (on paper) the tax disadvantage against local companies when evaluating contract awards (and not just on $50,000 and lower buys, but everything purchased).
Eliminate the use of multi-year state and education contracts that suck millions in revenue from local companies (that would otherwise be competitive) with various restrictions on local businesses that are not faced by their out of state competitors. Far too often I see bids where additional restrictions or requirements are placed on local vendors that are specifically exempted for the out of state companies we compete against.
Local businesses might win a much higher share of that business if our government and education procurement officials didn't make it harder for local business to compete in the first place.
Until that happens, all the announcements about "local first" don't mean squat without real change within the procurement model at state, local, and educational levels.
JMJ posted at 9:24 pm on Tue, Mar 13, 2012.
Knowing what I know about Mesa, someone's brother-in-law will be making a boatload of money.
DrJCA1 posted at 9:14 pm on Wed, Mar 14, 2012.
I am all for supporting local businesses by eveyone. Too many fools buy everything on-line, much to the detriment of their neighborhoods. I buy from local mom and pop stores whenever possible. I neve have had a problem and I am treated with genuine caring and respect. In this day and age of so much technological intervention between humans, it is a refreshing change of pace.