City of Austin Council Message Board

Dear Council Member Colleagues,

I am trying to see if there is any desire to have a “calendar” from the purchasing department showing when things like current contracts will be expiring, and therefore will probably be coming before Council.

If we have a calendar showing which contracts were set to expire on let’s say a rolling 90 day period, updated once a month or so, would that help alleviate some of the “firefights” it seems that come before Council?

It seems like we have these items that come up, without much warning – like the Republic contract yesterday (Item #14, 10-Dec-2015 agenda, Item ID 50210), that must be approved immediately else services to residents or the City will be impacted. I would like for there to be a way that we could get ahead of this.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Don

This is an interesting idea, Council Member Zimmerman. I imagine that some kind of rolling list may already exist in order for the city staff to use in tracking contracts. Although, it seems that because of the number of issues we face each week, topics don't bubble to the surface until necessary. I don't know if simply having a list would help this, but I would be interested to know what would be necessary to have access to this kind of information.

Thanks!
Ellen Troxclair

I asked the Purchasing office if there was an existing list that Council could have access to. Below I have provided the response from the Purchasing office.
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"For a number of years now the Purchasing Office has maintained an “Expiring Contracts List” on the Austin Finance Online (AFO) website. This list displays all multi-term contracts that are expiring within the next 180 days (expiration of all interim contract terms as well as all final contract terms). This list is available in a couple places in AFO and is available for download in multiple formats. See:

Web Site (.html): Go to (https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/financeonli ... ing180.cfm), and view all, view all within a given category (e.g., construction, commodity, professional services, etc.) or search for individual contracts by name or number.

Spreadsheet (.xls): Go to (https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/financeonli ... OCCRPT.cfm), click on the Microsoft Excel icon ( ) to the right of “Contracts Expiring Next 180 days”

Flat File (.pdf): Go to (https://www.ci.austin.tx.us/financeonli ... /index.cfm), click on “Purchasing Services” tab, and then on the “Expiring Contracts List”