Local governments and school districts realize true savings through cooperative contracts

Sharing our services in government purchasing is about organizing and working together to produce true cooperative contracts to save time and money. Westchester County's Cooperative Purchasing program is a fiscally responsible approach for local governments, school districts and fire districts to realize savings for themselves as well as the county taxpayers.  In fact, the county offers a variety of other shared services throughtout county governmentl.

What’s the difference between Cooperative Contract vs. Piggybacking?

All local governments, school districts, and fire districts located in Westchester County can utilize contracts that are created by Westchester County, and that is called “Piggy Backing.” This saves the time and costs associated with bidding the needed items. A cooperative contract is created when all agencies establish their requirements and go out to bid together for those requirements in a coordinated effort.

For example, Westchester County requires 50 new picnic tables for various parks and at the same time, the local recreation departments also require picnic tables. Perhaps the total throughout all the recreation departments and school districts is 35 tables. This brings the total required amount to 85 new picnic tables. Westchester then prepares a formal bid for 85 picnic tables; and as we all know, when one is purchasing a higher quantity, the unit cost goes down.

So if Westchester goes out to bid for 85 new picnic tables to be delivered at various locations throughout the county, everyone will get a lower unit cost for the tables they need to purchase AND each participating municipality has saved time and money associated with the bid process. 

Values of Cooperative Purchasing

• Cooperative contracts produce lower prices. By bidding similarly purchased items and aggregating requirements, governments can benefit from the combined economies of scale of multiple agencies. Cooperative contracts are especially advantageous for smaller governments because they benefit from the greater quantities required by the larger government consumers.
• The ability to use/share procurement professionals from Westchester County allows the smaller agencies to reallocate their own resources who may be performing various roles within their own agency.
• With one contract serving multiple agencies, cooperative contracts reduce administrative costs by avoiding duplication in advertising, reproduction and labor costs.
• Cooperative contracts are convenient. Instead of seeking quotes and bids, the agencies can place orders from the established contract. This saves the agencies time and effort.
• Citizens benefit from cooperative purchasing through lower total cost of government, better use of resources and more efficient government operations.