SNOW HILL– County officials agreed to use email voting when it might help in the vehicle purchasing process.
While they didn’t approve staff’s recommendation as far as vehicle purchasing, the Worcester County Commissioners this week agreed unanimously to vote via email when approvals were needed quickly. The change is meant to help the county procure the vehicles approved in the budget.
“They don’t have a lot of surplus vehicles on the lots so we’re dealing with shortages.,” said Nicholas Rice, the county’s procurement officer.
Rice told the commissioners this week he’d worked with staff to figure out how to add some flexibility to the vehicle purchasing process, as in recent years the county has been struggling to find the vehicles that have been approved for purchase. Rice said that for years, once the budget was approved, staff would contact state contract holders or ask for bids from dealerships for the vehicles that had been approved for purchase in the fiscal year.
“Historically that worked.,” Rice said. “We would place the order, then 60 to 90 days we’d get the vehicle.”
That is no longer typical.
“With surplus issues and manufacturing issues and vehicle shortages what we’re noticing is the manufacturers have specific windows that open up,” Rice said.
He said that while manufacturers tried to provide notice of when those purchasing windows would be open but that didn’t always help.
“They tell us they’re going to open up and then they close or if they get their quota they’ll close the window and we may not get the request actually in.”
He said that when the county tried to get dealerships to submit bids for certain vehicles, they often weren’t able to bid.
“They don’t have a lot of surplus vehicles on the lots,” he said.
Currently, the budget approved for fiscal year 2024 includes a new SUV for the state’s attorney’s office, eight SUVs for the sheriff’s office, and a variety of trucks for divisions like maintenance and solid waste.
Rice said there was also still a vehicle that was approved for purchase in the fiscal year 2022 budget that hadn’t yet been received. The vehicles approved for purchase in the last fiscal year, fiscal year 2023, have also not arrived.
“What we’re noticing is you can put an order in and if the order’s not filled they can basically within a certain time, 12 or 18 months, tell you the order’s canceled,” Rice said.
As a result, he recommended the commissioners consider providing staff with some leeway when it came to purchasing.
“What we’re proposing to do is have some flexibility to be able to jump when the window’s open to place orders or a vehicle becomes available on a lot,” Rice told the commissioners. “We have list submitted of vehicles approved. What we’re proposing is as long as we stay within what they budgeted for those certain vehicles we be able to place the order without coming to the commissioners for each induvial purchase.”
Commissioner Ted Elder said that rather than “change everything,” he’d like to see the commissioners weigh in on urgent purchases with email voting. He said if staff found a vehicle and the county needed to act quickly, the commissioners could come to a consensus via email.
“We do have email votes,” Elder said. “We fulfill those things pretty quickly. Sometimes one or two days.”
Commissioner pointed out that if the situation was urgent the chief administrative officer could even reach out to the commissioners individually.
The commissioners voted unanimously to authorize vehicle purchases via email votes when needed.
