Cobb County businesses looking to do business with the county got a little extra help on Tuesday when commissioners unanimously approved a local preference provision in the county’s purchasing policies.
The local preference provision is an extension of an idea first proposed by first-term Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, who launched her Keep It In Cobb initiative in January to help local businesses.
The approved policy gives local companies an extra five points in the county’s bidding and evaluation system on contracts between $50,000 and $100,000. For contracts over $100,000, local companies will receive an additional three points.
Birrell pushed the provision as an economic development tool to keep more county dollars in Cobb.
The local preference policy applies only to professional services, and not goods or products.. County code requires bids for typical product purchases to be awarded to the lowest bidder that is both responsive and responsible.
“The whole purpose of this policy is to select the most qualified firm for the [professional services] job, which encompasses qualification and price,” said Mark Kohntopp, Cobb’s interim purchasing director.
Cobb’s local preference is one of the first in the metro area, but follows Paulding County, which established a local company policy in early 2010.
Paulding’s policy — a reverse of Cobb’s provisions — applies to goods but not to professional services.
“We don’t have as many engineers and architects that offer these type services in Paulding as Cobb probably does,” said Tabitha Pollard, Paulding’s finance director. “A lot of the professional services contracts are first based on qualifications and then on price and the [local preference] policy [in Paulding] is based on price.”
Like Cobb, Paulding's intentions were to help build the county's economy, by re-investing local money back into the local community, Pollard said. So far, the local business preference has been a consideration in about two bid awards.
The Cobb policy takes effect Jan. 1, and requires status updates to commissioners and the county manger every six months.
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