OCA Audit Reports

Issued: June 2008

This report presents the results of our Competitive and Sole Source Purchasing audit. The purpose of this audit was to determine whether City departments were appropriately soliciting competition for purchases, including following policies and procedures related to sole source purchases.

City procurement policies establish that purchases made by the City must be subjected to competition, unless exempted by state law. In the City of Austin, purchasing is primarily conducted by a central Purchasing Office, but purchases under $5,000 are delegated to individual departments. Purchases conducted by departments represent the vast majority of the City’s yearly purchases.

We found that departmental purchases, which are purchases below $5,000 made at the discretion of departments, are not consistently processed in compliance with City policies regarding competition, coding of purchases, and encumbrance of funds.

Further, the Purchasing Office needs a more proactive approach to ensure the City is getting the “best deal” for competitive purchases. We identified repeated use of vendors without a contract. Additionally, due to problems with the accuracy of vendor contact information, a number of vendors are not notified of upcoming opportunity for bids for purchases above $5,000.

Finally, we did not identify any misuse for allowed exceptions to competitive requirements, particularly sole source and emergency purchases. However, departments did not always document these purchases according to City policies.

We have issued six recommendations to ensure that purchasing staff in the various departments conduct purchases in adherence with applicable City policies and that the Purchasing Office takes a more proactive approach to ensure that the City is getting the “best deal” for City purchases.

Download the entire text of our Competitive and Sole Source Purchasing in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files. Or request a hard copy of this audit report, No. AU08101, by submitting this audit report request form.

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