Permanent Bid Threshold Effective 1/1/23
Effective January 1, 2023, the new threshold for a solicitation issued by the Procurement Service Center (PSC) will be $100,000 for both goods and services. As we move into a more stable supply chain, we are pleased to announce this permanent change to the procurement thresholds. As part of this change, and in accordance with Uniform Grant Guidance (2 CFR 200), all procurements above $10,000 must be “reasonable based on research, experience, purchase history or other information and documents it files accordingly.” To meet this requirement, for all requisitions between $10,000 and $100,000, regardless of funding type, requisitioners will upload 2 items:
1. Source Selection & Price Reasonableness form (not required if purchased against an existing CU bid/contract or a cooperative contract from places such as Omnia Partners or E&I)
2. Price information from at least two suppliers - one from the supplier they are ordering from and the other from a competitor. The price information can be screenshots from two websites or quotes provided from the suppliers. The requirement to obtain two quotes will be waived if the purchase is made against an existing CU bid/contract or a cooperative contract, is for a Sole Source item, or is an emergency procurement.
How we arrived at this change
With the changing landscape of the supply chain and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic CU has continued to examine our procurement process and look for efficiencies to process orders faster and get products and services to our campus customers in a timely manner. In January of this year, the PSC issued an Emergency Procurement Threshold Declaration which raised the procurement thresholds for non-federal purchases from $10,000 to $50,000 for goods and $50,000 to $150,000 for services. This not only allowed CU to process purchase orders faster, but also get ahead of many ongoing price increases that were imminent in the market. The emergency declaration, however, did cause limitations to our ability to complete cost transfers to grant funds. To mitigate this, all purchases over $10,000, will follow the process outlined above, allowing eligible purchases to be charged to grant funds.
For questions, please contact the PSC Service Desk at 303.837.2161 or psc@cu.edu.
Comments
While on the surface this seems to be a good thing and even reasonable but when looking at the requirmenet for requisitions between $10K and $50K the additional burden pushed down to the finance/procurement staff in the department is quite large. I feel like the timeline for this change in process is unreasonable given the need to wrap up the semester and then most staff are taking time off for the holidays. This gives limited time for financial staff to get the infomration out to the departments they support. I think a more well thought out plan of communication and implementation is called for. Please consider pushing this back a month or so and do better communicaiton then just one email to shoppers in Marketplace.
Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns about the upcoming bid threshold changes. We hope that you find it to be a good change once you have processed a few orders. We understand that the timing of this rollout is not ideal, but unfortunately, we cannot delay the implementation. We have been operating under an emergency declaration for 11 months, and we can no longer operate this way. We encourage you to work with the PSC Purchasing Agents for your upcoming purchases between $10,000 and $100,000 to alleviate any concerns you have about the new process.
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