Who’s Minding the Store for the City? : L.A. Should Take Wachs’ Advice to Trim Supply Costs Through Frugal Purchasing

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, might be on to something. Wachs recently assumed leadership of the council’s Governmental Efficiency Committee and has been clamoring about waste in city purchasing.

Specifically, Wachs visited a typical office supply store and came out claiming vast savings from what the city normally pays for everything from copy paper and writing tablets to computer disks and manila folders. A good “photo op,” as we say in this business, or just another sound bite? Maybe, but when a fiscally strapped local government is as large as that of Los Angeles, the costs of those paper clips can add up to serious money.

For guidance in these matters, we relate a story from our nation’s capital.

For years there, the local government was told that it was wasting millions of dollars annually by paying much more than it should have for basic supplies and equipment. Few took the admonitions seriously. But later reports from the federal General Accounting Office and the National Institute of Government Purchasing finally caused the bureaucrats to take notice. Those reports said that Washington, D.C. could save $20 million annually with more frugal purchasing practices.

Eventually, the D.C. government began looking into regional collective purchasing programs involving adjacent municipalities, and other government purchasing cooperatives involving neighboring and southern states. Such programs allowed participating governments to buy more for less by pooling their purchases.

Los Angeles is already hamstrung in these matters through ill-advised bidding preferences to county companies. That may promote local businesses, but it can also cost more.

At a time when higher taxes are unlikely and probably not economically desirable, and at a time when few are willing to consider reduced city services, getting as much as possible for every public dollar makes eminent good sense. That may mean a rethinking of the city’s purchase policies.