US Department of the Treasury - COVID-19 - Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery
Funds (ARPA) (ALN 21.027)
Recommendation: We recommend that the City establish procedures to ensure that their
purchasing policy follows Uniform Guidance procurement standards.
Action Taken: The City does follow Uniform Guidance procurement standards. In this instance,
a vendor was selected under an emergency contract basis utilizing our waiver of bids policy. The
entire country was awarded ARPA funds with water and sewer lining replacement being an
allowable use of these funds. Due to the fact that there are a very limited number of vendors
who provide this service, and the fact that there would be a significant number of municipalities
seeking this service with the influx of ARPA dollars, as well as the fact that due to supply and
demand, the cost for these services were escalating rapidly, the City wanted to be one of the first
to engage with a contractor in order to secure a vendor in a timely manner before we would be
unable to do so since the projects are long term projects and there was a time limit on when this
money would need to be spent. Therefore, we knew it would not be possible to conduct our own
bid. We choose a vendor off the COSTARS contract. I have attached a copy of the ordinance
where we explained to Council our concern for our securing a vendor and our need to act
quickly, which is why we originally initiated the purchase from City funds, before ARPA funds
were distributed, and then replaced the City funds with ARPA funds once they were received.