Shop globally but consider locally – Missoula City Council is under fire

SUMMARY: How local government buys things is important, too, not just what it buys and for how much.

Missoula City Council is under fire from several local businesses for inking a $450,000 contract for a new telephone and data transmission system without giving hometown vendors a chance to bid for the job.

Based on our understanding of government purchasing laws and regulations, Missoula officials haven’t done anything illicit. But they’ve erred in spending public dollars in a way likely to leave people wondering if the money was well-spent.
At issue is the city’s choice of Qwest Networking and Cisco Systems to provide its new Voice over Internet Protocol telephone system. State law generally requires cities to put such large purchases up for bid, but it also allows cities to forego their own bidding procedures and acquire goods and services from a vendor that’s successfully won a similar state government contract through competitive bidding. That’s what Missoula has done.

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/12/08/opinion/opinion5.txt

Related Story: Missoula’s non-local technology purchases questioned http://www.matr.net/article-17225.html