Ventura County Grand Jury • 2012-2013 • Agency Response
Response to: 2012-13 Grand Jury Final Report

County Green Procurement Policy"*

Published: July 24, 2015 8 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 4 findings

F01 Page 5
The Grand Jury found that the Policy as written is unclear and in general has not been enforced. The Policy did not clearly identify whether the allowable 10% price preference was an absolute limit, almed at containing the cost of recycled paper or whether it could be ignored if operational budgets were not exceeded. Partially Agree. The policy definitively states a 10% premium (higher price) is allowed for agencies and departments to purchase recycled paper versus non-recycled paper. However the Policy, is intended as a guideline in that it does allow County agencies, boards, commissions, departments and offices discretion in determining the feasibility and cost versus benefit of using recycled paper.
Related Recommendations (1)
R01
Page 6
The Grand Jury recommends that the Board of Supervisors direct the GSA to revise the Policy in order to eliminate the ambiguity between a policy that establishes requirements and a policy that states goals. If the intent of the Board of Supervisors is to establish a goal to achieve increased use of recycled paper products, then the Policy should be revised to that effect. For example, replace "should" with "shall," eliminate "feasibility" from statements meant to be goals, and remove the 10% price preference. The goal of the Policy would be to use recycled paper products to the extent each agency and department is able within its allocated budget. If the intent of the Board of Supervisors is to establish a requirement to increase use of recycled paper products with a financial cap limited to revenue neutral or a 10% price preference, then the Policy should clearly define the entities responsible for monitoring the costs, enforcing the requirements, and formally approving any deviations falling under the umbrella of "feasibility." Previously implemented. We believe the Green Procurement Policy as written does meet the intent of the Board to provide the appropriate direction to departments, with the necessary discretion to balance the goal of increasing the use of recycled products with operational requirements and agency/department cost versus benefit considerations. With this intent, we also believe the use of the terms "should" and feasibility" are appropriate.
F02 Page 5
The Grand Jury found that the costs of implementing the Policy, i.e., any additional costs for using recycled paper, were not known by all departments. It was not clear that recycled paper goods were revenue neutral or within the Policy's defined 10% price preference. Hence, monies spent beyond the 10% price preference placed the priority on achieving the goal of the Policy at the expense of operational funds that could have been used for other purposes.
Related Recommendations (1)
R02
Page 6
The Grand Jury recommends that the Procurement Department within GSA help the County's agencies and departments to develop restricted lists of post-consumer recycled content products that satisfy the Policy's guidelines for price preference and are compatible with the operational needs of each of those organizations. GSA should help to ensure that County departments and agencies are aware of the Policy and the cost differences between recycled and non-recycled paper products. Further analysis is needed to determine how GSA would implement this recommendation. One option would be to work with our office supply provider to identify all paper options that meet or exceed a minimum of 30% post-consumer recycled content. Each department will share in the responsibility to support the County's policy on Green Procurement and the Procurement division will avail themselves to departments to assist in meeting the County's goals. Departments will be responsible for the purchase and use of environmentally preferable products. This analysis will be finalized by September 2015.
F03 Page 5
The Grand Jury found that the GSA websites for Bid Listings and Bid Histories are not consistently updated with current and complete procurement data. Thus they do not provide a reliable source of procurement information in support of public transparency. We partially agree. As stated in this finding and FA-09, a number of bid histories did not have an associated recap or abstract. However, vendors who responded are always 1 notified of the Bid and RFP results at the conclusion of the Bid or RFP. Additionally, vendors and members of the public may request copies of the vendor responses and recaps.
Related Recommendations (1)
R03
Page 7
The Grand Jury recommends that GSA develop a policy for the content of its Procurement website pages and maintain the content of those pages in a timely manner per the policy. implemented. The majority of the missing information identified in the report has now been populated. The recommendation to develop an internal policy regarding content on the website already exists for posting Bid recaps on the internet. The policy also states that all responding bidders be notified of the results prior to award. 3 <b>EXHIBIT 2</b> 3 FY 2014-2015 GRAND JURY FINAL REPORT RESPONSES TO FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Respondents Report Title Report Number (With FI and R#) (& Date) REPORT NO. March 5, 2015 <b>Elections and Polling Place Observations</b> Title: Required County Clerk and Recorder/Registrar *
F04 Page 6
The Grand Jury found that limiting items to a targeted subset of choices available for purchase from County suppliers was an effective way to control costs. Partially agree. The process of volume/bulk discounts is a basic Procurement principle. In the area of office supplies specifically, pricing could be reduced if all agencies were to purchase the exact same items. Such a policy, however, would reduce the flexibility of departments to choose the items that they deem necessary to perform their daily functions. Currently, the decision to limit choices is left to each agency without GSA oversight. RECOMMENDATIONS
No recommendations for this finding

No Responses Found 2

Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.

Ventura County Board of Supervisors Elected County Office
Ventura County County Clerk-Recorder Elected County Office

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.