Purchasing & Procurement

The Woodlands Township’s Purchasing Department functions within the Finance Department. Since the Township maintains a mostly decentralized purchasing model, purchasing staff are responsible for ensuring established purchasing policy and procedures are being followed by all departmental staff. Purchasing’s responsibilities include but are not limited to:

  • Communicating Township purchasing policy as set by the Board of Directors;
  • Interpreting and enforcing Township purchasing procedures as determined by Finance and the President/CEO’s Office in view of the State of Texas legal requirements, the Township’s enabling legislation, and applicable local government code;
  • Maintenance of all vendor records within the financial software;
  • All finishing efforts for requisitions being converted to purchase orders;
  • Review and posting of executed contract records within the financial software;
  • Non-departmental supplies inventory and purchases;
  • Administration of the corporate purchasing card program;
  • Administration of various non-departmental lease and maintenance agreement(s);
  • Maintaining cooperative purchasing agreements while advocating for their responsible use.

Philosophy

The Woodlands Township’s basic procurement philosophy is that competitive participation by the business community is vital to our mutual welfare. While the following general policy statement does not encompass every detail of all regulations, practices, and statutes governing purchasing, it does provide the basic principles of our procurement practices.

The Woodlands Township, in making purchasing decisions, attempts at all times to maintain goodwill between the Township and the business community as well as our intergovernmental partners. Toward this end, we strive to:

  • Observe strict truthfulness and highest ethics in all transactions and correspondence.
  • Keep competition open and fair.
  • Give all vendors full, fair, prompt, and courteous consideration.

Bid Opportunities

The Woodlands Township posts Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and Requests for Qualifications (RFQs) in accordance with its purchasing policies and applicable state laws. Vendors are encouraged to review current opportunities and submit responses as outlined in each notice.

Open Bids

Cooperative Purchasing

The Woodlands Township is a member in good standing of multiple local governmental purchasing cooperatives to take advantage of the efficiencies and resource savings inherent in those contracts and agreements. Additionally, the Township maintains several interlocal purchasing agreements with neighboring entities for reciprocal sharing of available contracts.

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Vendors

The Woodlands Township does not maintain a central ‘authorized vendor list’, nor does it require potential consultants, service providers, vendors, contractors, or suppliers to register with Finance to do business with the Township. Rather, the Township utilizes a decentralized purchasing model wherein department-level staff procure most goods and services according to State of Texas procurement and bidding requirements, Township financial policy, staff authorization limits, and budgetary restrictions.

Purchasing does maintain vendor information within the financial software, including adding new vendors to the system as needed and safeguarding that information from unapproved changes. No new vendor will be added without a current, signed W-9 including FID (or SSN, as applicable).

Township Contracts

The Township does not currently assign bid management, contract development, or contract management responsibilities to the Finance Department. Vendors may find the following useful to understand the bidding process:

  • The full bidding and award process, including gathering of contract documentation, opening, review, and scoring of bids (when applicable) along with management of any contract following execution is led at the department level according to the needs of that program or project as defined by that department.
  • The contract manager is typically the staff member identified in the posted bid documents as the primary contact during the bid process.
  • The Board of Directors may be asked to review and approve any Township contract, and by policy must approve any expenditure over $75,000 in annual operating funds or $100,000 in Capital; or any agreement in excess of one year.
  • Any verbal commitment by Township staff in conflict with these statements is non-binding.

Additional Resources

Public purchasing and procurement laws within the State of Texas are spread amongst many sections of Texas Government Code and Local Government Code. As they pertain to the Township Purchasing Department’s use purposes, these code chapters include but are not necessarily limited to: 

Texas Government Code

Local Government Code

Other Resources

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