Front Row: Harry Bain, Regional Purchasing Coordinator, BMC; William Schull, BRCPC Chair & Purchasing Agent, Anne Arundel County; Stephen Gordon, CPOC Chair & Director of Procurement, City of Alexandria;
Standing: Edward Scott, Acting Director of Department of Central Services, Prince George's County; Floyd Holt, Deputy Director of Department of Central Services, Prince George's County (not pictured: Carl Kalish, Purchasing and Facilities Director, COG)

The cooperative purchasing committee of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council (BMC) and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments(COG) have agreed to work together to plan and create contracts for goods, services, and construction that would mutually benefit the neighboring regions. COG's Chief Purchasing Officers Committee and BMC's Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee signed the agreement on April 9, 2009 at a meeting in Largo, Maryland.

Through the Chief Purchasing Officers Committee (CPOC), participating agencies, school boards, authorities, and commissions combine bidding requirements resulting in large volume and better unit pricing. Similarly, the Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee (BRCPC) work together for mutal benefit.

The two regions expect to secure even better value for dollars spent on goods, services and construction through the new BRCPC-CPOC partheship. The agreement will allow them to stretch work-force capacity among the local governments in the two neighboring regions.

Subcommittees

Energy
MBE/WBE
Office Furniture
Public Schools
Public Works

Energy


The energy subcommittee was chaired by Stephen Myer. CPPB, Senior Buyer for Baltimore County Government. 

The efforts of the BRCPC Energy Board focused on managing ongoing energy price risk for both the electric and natural gas portfolios, continued development of long term power purchase agreement opportunities, and education and implemenation of demand response programs. 

The BRCPC energy portfolios' flexible structure allowed us to avoid most of the late spring and early summer 2008 run up in energy prices, Fixed rate purchases for future deliivery were deferred until prices moderated from the peak levels of late June, 2008. The electric portfolio began assuming more congestion risk price (price of power delivered to the local BGE zone) to avoid the expensive market premiums for fixed rate power delivered to the local BGE zone. For natural gas, the portfolio purchased as mucn naturel gas injected into storage as permissible during the sprnig and summer of 2009 to take advantage of historical low commodity prices. 

For fiscal year 2009, program savings for the entire BRCPC electric portfolio was $28.1 million when compared to the local electric utility's standard offier service and $32.7 milliion savings when compared to the prior retail fixed rate procurement approach. Total electric consumption for FY 2009 was 1.33 billion kWh. For the natural gas portfolio, savings of $.30 dth continue as a result of unbundling and competitive bidding of natural gas supply services. A total of 1.83 milllion dekatherms were delivered to the porfolio jurisdictions during FY 2009. 

During ficscal year 2009, preparations were made to incorporate two additional public school systems into the natural gas and electric portfolios. These additions will increase the natural gas portfolio volume by 25% in FY 2010 (to a total of 2.5 million dth) and incrrease estimated electric portfolio units by 17% on an annualized basis in FY 2011 (to a total of 1.55 billion kWh).

The energy subcommittee continues to investigate new, more cost effective ways of procuring energy from local generation sources, including renewable energy. Supporting new generation capacity in the central Maryland region helps stabilize and reduce capacity and energy costs for the portfiolio as well as the entiire Central Maryland region. BRCPC's size and credit standing allow it to play an important role in supporting new capactiy efforts for Central Maryland. As of December, 2009, BRCPC is considering two viable long term power purchase agreement oopportunites with local renewable energy projects. Negotiations and development of these opportunities continue into 2010 with the goal of procuring stable, cost effective sourcies of renewable power.
 
Demand response programs and initiatives (reducing electric demand during grid peak hours) were presented, reviewed and discussed at the BRCPC meetings. Meetings were also held with individuall BRCPC jurisdictions and their designated offiiciials. Several of the BRCPC members have initiated some form of demand response program to help reduce electric costs.  

BRCPC and its energy consultant (South River/Enernoc), representatives from the PJM (electric power grid) and others knowledgeable in federal government regulation presented at the BMC Symposium on Energy in June, 2009. The presentation provided information on the economic, legislative and technological realties of Maryland's current and future energy market.

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MBE/WBE

The subcommittee was chaired by Deborah Henderson, Procurement Director for Harford County Government.

In September, 2008 BMC partnered with BRCPC to sponsor the second Diversity Expo. This highly successful event was organiized by the MBE/WBE coordinators representing Baltimore City, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties. With over 400 attendees the event provided unllimited opportunities and proved be a valuable resource for businesses as well as procurement staff. 

Our next bi-annual event wil focus on the current economic climate and its impact on MBE/WBE businesses. Exchanging new ideas, forming new partnerships and facing new challenges will be vital components in encouraging meaningful MBE/WBE participation. 

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Office Furniture

The subcommittee is chaired by Darla Herbold, CPPO, Purchasing Administrator, Howard County Government.

The group considers requests for new items to be added to the office furniture contract, based on needs of multiple entities and consistent with the contract terms. Howard County as lead agency monitors contract compliance and issues bi-annual expenditure reports. During the first six months of 2009 $ 6.7 million was spent by public entities for office furniture. Contract users include BRCPC members and other public entities within Maryland and Northern Virginia. 

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Public Schools

The subcommittee, chaired by Deborah Groat, CPPB, C.P.M., Purchasing Office, Anne Arundel County Public Schools, includes the Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard County and Baltimore City Public Schools systems.

Today's economy presents many challenges for the purchasing professional. Markets are uncertain, competition keen, prices volatile, and businesses fail, to name a few. The cooperative buying environment is also maturing with a network of contracts that cross every border of the United States. Purchaising profressionals have never been so intimately knowledgeable about each other's activiities, successes and failures. This knowledge raises us all to higher standards of professionalism. 

The objectives of the Public Schools Group during the year were to increase cooperative buying activities, become more knowledgeable about industries where we spend large sums of money and ensure we are managing emeging interest in tne activiities of our profession.  The Public Schools Group is responsiible for eight term contracts for BRCPC, and an annual procurement for paper. The paper procurement is conducted with a reverse auction procurement method snd the last auction provided net cost savings of $194,288. This year we have added a procurement for musical instruments, and we in various stages of completion for agreements for reduced parcel shipper rates, E-Rate* reporting services, grass seed & fertilizer, band uniforms, marquee/message boards, toner cartridges, visitor management software, secure assessment services, and elevator repair. This represents a 120% increase in cooperative activity for the year. Savings are realized through the prices paid, labor saved, and overall influence of terms. 

A concerted effort has also been established with the Metropollitan Washington Council of Governments and our counterpart, CPOC (Chief Procurement Officer Committee), to determine methods and manners to increase the communication of our actitvites and increase our cooperatrive purchasing efforts. Several of the efforts above are being conducted by Montgomery County Public Schools, which will aggregate even larger volumes for best priciing through relationships with BRCPC and CPOC that includes Maryland and the District of Columbia in addtion to Virginia. 

Several industry representatives were invited to further our understandnig of their industries and the perspective of providers in many commodity areas. Presentations have been made by milk, paper, bread, carrier, automotive and industrial supplies industries. We also received a presentation on contract compliance software. Concrete ideas were received that can be utilized to save our respective districts money. 

Anne Arundel County Public Schools represented BRCPC on the State Board of Public Works Procurement Advisory Council's subcommittee charged with preparing an annual repot to the Maryland General Assembly on stare-wide cooperaive efforts. 

* E-Rate is the acronym used to describe the Federal program that provide discounts to assiist most schools and libraries in the United States (and U.S. territories) to obtain affordable telecommiunications and Internet access. It is one of four support programs funded through a Universal Service fee charged to companies that provide interstate and/or international telecommunications services. 

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Public Works

The subcommittee was chaired by Stephen Myer, CPPB, Senior Buyer, Baltimore County Government.

The Public Works group continued to meet bi-monthly in 2009. The group considered new regional contracts and extension of several existing ones. Active participants include procurement representatives from Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard counties. The group establshed new contracts for masonry services, on-call bituminous concrete paving and is evaluating bids for remote video surveillance and security systems, and hiigh performance cold mix. 

Near years-end the group was researching a regional approach to purchase chemicals needed for water and wastewater treatment. Though Baltimore City supplies bulk water to many parts of the region, several of the jurisdictions also have need to purchase treatment chemicals for their own water and wastewater operations. 

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BMC Contact Person:   Harry H. Bain, CPPO, C.P.M., Coordinator, Regional Purchasing

Baltimore Metropolitan Council
Baltimore Regional Cooperative Purchasing Committee
2700 Lighthouse Point East, Suite 310
Baltimore, Maryland 21224-4474
Telephone: 410-732-0500, Ext.1007
Facsimile: 410-732-8248
E-mail: hbain@baltometro.org