Previous Story
PSS cuts red tape on procurement regs
|
Posted on Feb 26 2001
The Public School System will begin implementing a less tedious procurement scheme that will liberate school principals from being caught in long, drawn-out processes of acquiring emergency school supplies needed in classrooms.
Starting March 1, the Board of Education and the Commissioner of Education have agreed to grant principals and program managers more flexibility in the purchase of needed school materials worth under $2,500.
Schools will then be allowed to transact directly with the PSS Fiscal Budget Office, a convenient shortcut from the usual lengthy procurement process.
“This is big shift in responsibility and the idea is to speed up the system,” said Acting Fiscal Budget Officer William Matson.
The new measure has been given a seven-month implementation time frame.
At the end of the current Fiscal Year, school principals can make direct small emergency purchases for school items worth as much as $10,000.
“Principals will be given a budget so they can order what they need in their schools without having to go down to the procurement office. We’re giving them more liberty,” said BOE chair Anthony Pellegrino.
Campuses can now have easy access to textbooks, dictionaries, computers, and miscellaneous items deemed necessary to aid classroom discussions and other purposes, that cost no more than $2,500.
According to Mr. Pellegrino, the board moved to reduce the prolonged process of supplies acquisition as an answer to popular demand raised by principals and project managers.
“They have long waited for this flexibility to be accorded to them,” said Mr. Matson. (MM)
