Judy Meisel is passionate about cooperative purchasing. As purchasing manager for Olathe, Kan., and a long-time buyer, Meisel sees cooperative purchasing as a powerful cost- and time-saving tool for public-sector procurement professionals.

Meisel, who was named the 2008 Purchasing Manager of the Year by NIGP's Mid-America Council of Public Purchasing, noted that the 10-county metropolitan Kansas City area "lends itself easily to promoting cooperative agreement for commonly used items," enabling smaller government entities to purchase goods at price points usually secured by larger entities.

For example, Olathe, a city of approximately 123,000 residents, participates in an annual cooperative vehicle bid that saves it 3 percent to 10 percent on purchases of police cars, pickup trucks and "anything with four wheels," Meisel says. The annual vehicle bid, which is made through the Mid-America Council of Public Purchasing, combines the purchasing power of more than 20 Kansas City-area governments.

While Meisel believes that cooperative purchasing always has been a useful tool in the procurement professional's toolbox, she sees it playing an even bigger role in today's economy, particularly for smaller government entities.

"We're a medium-size city, but we have a lot of other smaller entities — like a one-person shop or a small county — that can join in with the bigger entities and take advantage of those volume discounts and the arrangements we make," Meisel says.

A prerequisite for survival

For Keith Glatz, purchasing and contracts manager for Tamarac, Fla., cooperative purchasing delivers many benefits. Through its participation in the Southeast Florida Governmental Purchasing Cooperative — which pools the purchasing power of more than 40 Florida cities, counties, school districts and other entities — the city can tap into volume pricing on more than 60 contracts, covering items ranging from asphalt overlay to portable toilets to water-meter fittings.

Take sod, for example. "On the street," the city likely would pay 32.5 cents per square foot; through the cooperative, the city pays 20 cents per square foot, Glatz estimated. Likewise, when the purchasing department analyzed the city's unleaded gasoline expenditures this past fall, the department estimated that using the cooperative contract, the city was paying 50 cents less per gallon than consumers were paying at the pumps.

The Southeast Florida Governmental Purchasing Cooperative, which is an offshoot of NIGP's Southeast Florida Chapter, uses a lead-agency approach to developing and maintaining contracts. Agencies that have expertise with (or an effective contracting process for) a particular product take care of the solicitation process for that item.

That "division of labor," as Glatz put it, allows the lead agency to become an expert on behalf of the other members of the cooperative — creating a "huge" time savings for the member agencies. "You can develop one expert in one agency," Glatz says.

For example, Coral Springs, Fla., is the expert on diesel fuel. "Purchasing diesel fuel and administering the contract is very time-consuming," Glatz says. "But, because [Coral Springs] was the lead agency for the diesel-fuel purchase, all I have to do is order the fuel and expedite orders."

He says his staff has become the expert in purchasing lime for water-treatment. "We handle the details on this contract, and the other [cooperative] members just worry about ordering the product without having to have experts on staff."

Glatz says members meet once a month as part of the NIGP chapter meetings, and they often turn to each other for help and advice when they need it. "When we're looking for information on specialized contracts, we're able to send an e-mail blast to the co-op members, and somebody will respond with an RFP and a contract — and they may even have a contract I can piggyback off of that day."