Trade Show Chair Theresa Kempa, CPPO, CPPB

(727)943-4870

Dear Chapter Members and Colleagues,

We all are experiencing many career challenges in Purchasing due to the economic constraints our respective government agencies are facing, but, this is also a time of great opportunity for our profession. Purchasing profes-sionals have the ability to “bring to the table” cost savings through the com-petitive bid and negotiation process which are appreciated and needed more than ever in this harsh economic climate.

We owe it to ourselves and our agencies to keep abreast of trends in public procurement, markets and legislation for these are the tools we need to re-main relevant. When the management of an agency understands that pro-curement can assist with: positive public perception through a transparent and ethical process, acquisition planning for maximum benefit to the organi-zation, as well as provide benefits to the bottom line, we go from being per-ceived as “a stumbling block of red tape before I can get something” to the persons I trust to help get me the best product or service I need so that I can get the job done.

Your Chapter and Board remain committed to provid-ing educational and net- working opportunities to all members which will assist us in reaching our career goals. But, as with almost everything in life, you tend to get back what you put into it. Networking and educa-tional luncheon can be given, but you need to come and share your ideas with other members. Certification classes in our profession can be held to help keep our skills sharp, but you (and I!) need to sign up and at-tend. Scholarships are pro- vided for giving of your time and energy, but you need to provide that time, energy and drive!

There are still many opportunities available to participate coming up this year. We have three luncheons, three classes and a Trade Show coming up on November 4th!

Thank you to all the members that come, volunteer, support and share! And if you have hesitated in the past, reluctant to get involved, just remember the ole’ poster of Uncle Sam, Tampa Bay Area Chapter of NIGP wants YOU!

Theresa Kempa, CPPO, CPPBTheresa Kempa, CPPO, CPPBTheresa Kempa, CPPO, CPPBTheresa Kempa, CPPO, CPPB Chapter President

BOARD MEMBERS & COMMITTEE CHAIRS

Past President Laurie Roberts, CPPO, CPPB

(813) 794-2224

Professional Development Corey A. Murphy CPPO, CPPB

(813) 272-4372

Membership Karon Johnson, CPPB

(813) 274-8354

Programs Cathy Bartolotti (813) 876-1695

Publications Barbara Grilli CPPO, CPPB.,

C.P.M., FCCM (727) 893-7224

Golf Tournament Jay Jackus, CPPO, CPPB

(727) 942-5615

Reverse Trade Show Greg Spearman CPPO

(813) 274-8855

FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT…….…

Tampa Bay Area Chapter NIGP, Inc.

NEWSLETTERNEWSLETTERNEWSLETTER 2011 OFFICERS

PRESIDENT

THERESA KEMPA, CPPO, CPPB

VICE-PRESIDENT MINA KAEDING, CPPO,

CPPB, Ph.D. TREASURER

JOHN HOLLINGSHEAD, CPPB, FCPM, FCPA

SECRETARY

THERESA JORDAN, CPPO, CPPB, C.P.M.

www.nigp-tampabay.org

ISSUE 43 June 2011

Tampa Bay Area Chapter NIGP, Inc. Page 2

Scenes From Last Year’s Golf Tournament

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17th Annual Buyer Seller Golf Tournament

The Chapter’s 17th Annual Buyer/Seller Golf Tournament was held on Friday, May 13th at a new location, Seven Springs Golf & Country Club in New Port Richey. A total of 92 golfers pre-registered for the event and attendance was similar to last year’s turn out. Our third place team consisted of the group representing Waste Pro; Brad Avery, John Marino, Todd Holmes and Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano who finished with an 11 under par 61. The 2nd place finishers representing REXEL, Inc. was comprised of Dennis Michaels, Danny Hackman, Wes Martin and J.J. Meyer who came in with a 12 under par 60. This years winning team included Andreas McConnie, Chris Wil-liams, Ronnie Sims and Kevin Johnson of McConnie Fence finishing with 15 under par 57, the group is a two time winner as the also won the 2009 event. Individual event winners included Ronnie Sims of McConnie Fence, men’s closest to the pin and Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano participating with Waste Pro won men’s longest drive. Emilie Moore of Wharton-Smith Construction won women’s longest drive , as well as Rich Silkworth, playing with the Air Mechanical & Service Group who also had the longest drive, for women????? (Maybe he was confused!) Patrick Collins (late registrant) and Vince Sankoe with Ronco Communications & Electronics ended in a tie for the putting contest. Chapter members who participated in the event included; Kendal Capaz (along with husband Danny), Past President Dave Snyder, Past President Ken Trufant, Danny Young (along with son Derek) and yours truly. We would like to recognize this years hole sponsor’s and thank them for their support and in-clude; Gulf Coast Tractor & Equipment, Wharton-Smith, Inc. Construction Group, Shaw Environ-mental, Air Mechanical & Service Corp., Tampa Spring Co. (2), South Florida Emergency Vehi-cle, Munyan Painting Service, KONE, Inc., Mayer Electric, Tuff Shed, Baskerville-Donovan, Olin Mott, McConnie Fence, Republic Services, MBP and Ajax Paving. I would also like to thank the volunteers who assisted in making this one of our best tourna-ment’s and they include; Chuck Ankney, Anthony McGee, Jock McGlathery (co-chair) Cathy Morgan and Malcolm Wilson. Next year’s event is scheduled for Friday, the 18th of May!

Jay Jackus, CPPO, CPPBJay Jackus, CPPO, CPPBJay Jackus, CPPO, CPPBJay Jackus, CPPO, CPPB Chair, Annual Golf Tournament

Tampa Bay Area Chapter NIGP, Inc. Page 4

Your Chapter’s Input: Selecting Co-Op Office Suppl y Agreements

This month we’re exploring cooperative agreements for office supplies. Since this topic strikes a chord with most of our members, we solicited your views on four general questions to create the article. Special thanks to Chuck Ankney, CPPO - City of Dunedin; Greg Spearman, CPPO - City of Tampa; and David Snyder, CPPO, CPCM - Hillsborough County BOCC for their input. NIGP - TBC: Is the variety of national/state co-op agreements with the three major office supply distributors a good thing or a bad thing? Greg: No it’s not because you get to compare vendor contract terms, product and pricing. The only annoying thing is that some Co-op representatives get a little aggressive and pushy and obviously are operating on margins and incentives connected to their ability to sign contracts. Chuck: The three agreements are a good thing. Shopping for office supplies is a difficult thing because of the vast number of products available. It is difficult for a small agency to get competitive pricing without using a national contract. Buyers can create their own list of items to use to compare pricing between the suppliers. Pricing on the contracts is very similar overall. Therefore, choosing a supplier often comes down to service. David: Generally, I think it is a good thing to have access to multiple suppliers on appropriately awarded contracts. On the negative side, it will be more work to review the different contacts, compare prices, and determine which products are best for your agency. On the positive side, multiple contracts usually provide more options, more opportunity to find the best price and resultant savings, in my opinion, the positives and flexibility provided by the multiple contracts outweigh the negatives NIGP-TB: Can apples to apples comparisons be made for SKUs between the big catalog suppliers? Greg: It depends on what you're comparing I believe, and how the "apples" are described from supplier to supplier. We're attempting to do this exact analysis with office supplies at this moment in time. The SKU's vary a little from supplier to another but with everyone's cooperation; we are almost there on a "city cus-tom / core list" of office supply items that we are comparing between different suppliers under different contracts, including the State of Florida, NJPA and US Communities. It's been tough but we think the ef-fort / savings will be worth it. Chuck: Yes, but you must specify the items. You must also specify that they cannot substitute items. They will attempt to do this with many of the “contract” items, paper is a great example. This makes it difficult to compare products and is much more time consuming. The three contract stationers companies carry very similar product lines. For example, it is easy to compare HP ink cartridges and ton-ers. It is also a good idea to request that they set-up an account for you, based on the contract pricing, on their system. This allows you to log onto their website to do your own research. NIGP-TB: How can state and sometimes several national co-op agreements with the same office supply vendor both offer the "best" pricing? Greg: Interesting question. It's my understanding that this shouldn't happen. That's why as a public entity, you have to do your own analysis with your own "custom list" of core office supply items to determine who's providing the best pricing, terms and conditions. Chuck: They all claim to offer the “best” pricing. However, they do not mean on an item by item ba-sis. They make this claim based on a “basket” of items, essentially, their catalog. That is a difficult claim to disprove. I compared pricing from the Office Depot State and Staples State of Florida contracts. Over-all, pricing was very similar. The best price would depend on the basket of items that the individual entity buys.

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(Choices continued from page 4) NIGP-TB: Do these agreements leave the small local office supply house out in the cold? Greg: Unfortunately, this could happen, unless your entity has a small local business enterprise program that target's local, small office supply providers or a program that requires your prime supplier to contract with a local SBE / MBE supplier. In most cases, the smaller suppliers may not be able to give you next day delivery, may require a minimum $$$ order, may or may not have an interactive website for placing orders using P-Cards, may be limited to the number of times per week that can deliver to your location, may have limited inventory supply on hand and may be limited in terms of the number of locations they have locally, etc . David: If government entities are limited to only one contract by their Purchasing Department, then the smaller local office supply outlets are usually left out, except for emergencies and exceptional items. Also, this limitation [single as opposed to multiple awards] eliminates price comparison and possibly some of the other advantages to accessing multiple contracts. One could argue that this is the way to go if the Purchasing office has done the analysis of the various contracts and determined which one is best in terms of delivery, quality, discounts, pricing, etc. Chuck: Generally, yes, but not always. The U.S. Communities contract gives an entity the ability to use small local contractors. [Chuck is referring to the US Communities’ Independent Stationers contract which is a member group that small local office supply companies can join. It enables them to offer e-commerce and firm fixed pricing across thousands of SKUs]. Our member panel offered some great tips on navigating through the overwhelming choices facing procurement pro-fessionals for office supplies. There are hundreds of thou-sands of SKUs in existence, multiplied by infinite and unique combinations of market baskets for each entity, multiplied again by three to four major players, multiplied again by state and national agreement versions for the same player. The market baskets themselves are dynamic as require-ments change and new items are offered over the life of the agreement. If you are even a casual fan of probability and statistics, a blanket claim by any of the major players that they have the ABSOLUTE LOWEST prices for everyone is a claim that is statistically impossible to prove or achieve glob-ally. A recent comparison by a co-operative purchasing group in southeastern Florida determined which player was best for THEIR blended market basket. Toner, a major con-tributor to spend was not included. If toner is in your market basket, this comparison is not very relevant. If store brands were substituted in this blended market basket the compari-son is further weakened. These analyses are very subjective. Our mission as procurement pros is to turn the claims into objective and measurable decision points. The only way to do that is to invest time and create that market basket that is unique to YOUR agency, com-pare prices and policies such as minimum orders, and base YOUR decision on YOUR unique result. Should you opt for several cooperative agreements for absolute best pricing or inclusion of small local business? Certainly that adds yet another layer of complexity. At some point we need to rewind and con-sider the research and administration that comes with all of these choices. Are we really better off than we were hard bidding 10-15 years ago before we had all these cooperative choices? Kinda makes you won-der…… By: Barbara Grilli, CPPO, C.P.M., CPPB, FCCMBarbara Grilli, CPPO, C.P.M., CPPB, FCCMBarbara Grilli, CPPO, C.P.M., CPPB, FCCMBarbara Grilli, CPPO, C.P.M., CPPB, FCCM Purchasing Manager City of St Petersburg

IT’S YOUR NEWS LETTER

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION…………

Thanks to all who contributed

...without you these pages would be blank…

Hurricane Season has begun! Time to Review Your Plans!

Tampa Bay Area Chapter NIGP, Inc. Page 6

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NEWS

June 23: Effective Contract Writing

$150 for TB Chapter /National Members; $225 for TB Chapter Only 8 am—5 pm at the Tampa Port Authority

September 22 & 23: Contracting for Public Sector Services

$150 for TB Chapter/National Members; $225 for TB Chapter Only 8am—5 pm 2 days at Tampa Port Authority

Fall 2011: Intro To Public Procurement

3 days - Details coming soon!

Details: http://www.nigp-tampabay.org/ProfessionalDevelopment.asp or call Corey Murphy at 813-272-4372

Tampa Bay Area Chapter National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, Inc.

2010—2011 Meeting Schedule

DECEMBER 3, 2010………………………...CHAPTER LUNCHEON (Holiday Program & Installation of Officers)

JANUARY 28 , 2011……………………………..CHAPTER LUNCHEON

FEBRUARY 18, 2011………..………………………..Board Meeting @ Tampa International Airport @ 2:30 PM

MARCH 11, 2011………………………..……………... PRO-D Protests and Disputes 7am-4pm (Purchasing Month)

APRIL 4-6,2011…………………………..……………….PRO-D Contract Administration, PSTA

APRIL 15, 2011…………………………..……………….Reverse Trade Show

MAY 13, 2011…………………………………..……….….Golf Tournament and Chapter Luncheon

JUNE 10, 2011……………………………….…………...CHAPTER LUNCHEON

JULY 15, 2011………...…………………………………..Board Meeting @ Tampa International Airport @ 2:30 PM

JUNE 23, 2011…………………………………………….PRO-D Effective Contract Writing, Tampa Port Authority

AUGUST 25-29, 2011……………………..………..National Forum

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011…………..…………………... CHAPTER LUNCHEON (Election of Officers)

SEPTEMBER 22-23, 2011…………….PRO-D Contracting for Public Sector Services, Tampa Port Authority

OCTOBER 14, 2011…………………………….. Board Meeting @ Tampa International Airport @ 2:30 PM

NOVEMBER 4, 2011………………………………...Trade Show

DECEMBER 9, 2011………………………….CHAPTER LUNCHEON (Holiday Program & Installation of Officers

PUBLICATIONS Email the news from your corner of the world to:

barbara.grilli@stpete.org Phone: 727-893-7224 Fax 727-892-5325

KEEP IN TOUCH….IT’S YOUR NEWSLETTER

T amp a B a y A re a C ha p t e r N IG P, In c ww w. n i gp - t am p a ba y . o r g

NOTE: THE NEWSLETTER IS POSTED ON THE WEBSITE

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