by Gerald T. Reiner, Jr., Purchasing Agent for the County of Bergen
View the entire newsletter for more articles: 2021 – NJAC County Biz – January
As many local governments throughout the state have seen, COVID-19 has presented challenges in continuation and operations of essential government functions. Included in this challenge is the ability to safely, perform certain tasks, which allow the public to observe and participate in government in a transparent manner. While our public meetings took to zoom, many Counties like the County of Bergen recognized the challenges of a public bid opening happening during the Pandemic and acted quickly to find a solution.
Initially the guidance from the State allowed some flexibility with suggestions such as holding openings outside and utilizing multiple video cameras to broadcast the opening, while creative this meant that the County would be beholden to the weather or it required additional staffing to manage the technology. However shortly thereafter the State adopted emergency regulations allowing Counties to adopt e-procurement and fully embrace a 100% digital procurement environment.
The regulations were adopted permanently in parallel to the emergency adoption opened the door to something the County had been exploring for a while, but could not fully adopt without these regulations. These new rules eliminated the need for in person bid openings while maintaining the transparency that the process and the public deserves. E-procurement also has additional benefits in that smaller, minority and women owned businesses are able to participate in the process. This is largely because e-procurements can be filled out 24 hours a day 7 days a week and submitted without having to physically drop off a package at a County building. An additional benefit of e-procurement, which helps our business community participate, is that the system ensures that every submission is complete and responsive. It alerts prospective vendors when they are missing documents that will cause their bid or proposal to be rejected, saving time for both the County and the business alike.
Of course the challenges of the County were the same challenges our 70 municipalities were also facing, and due largely in part from the Federal CARES act the County had the resources to not only contract on behalf of the County of Bergen but also to provide for a license to each municipality and independent agency of the County. Eventually allowing a vendor to have a single sign on to participate in nearly every bid and solicitation within the County of Bergen. The licensing agreement is being offered to the municipalities through a shared service agreement at no cost to the communities who are opting in.
To see and experience the County’s e-procurement platform please visit www.BergenBids.com