Re: Finding 2024-001: Procurement (50000)
Nutrition Services currently uses US Foods for the purchase of various commercial food items throughout the year (candy, chips, soda, bread, hotdogs, popcorn, coffee, hot cocoa, churros, cookies, etc). A vast majority of the purchases are for non-program foods for catering or Snack Bar Sales at Fred Kelly Football Stadium. Occasionally, US Foods is used to purchase specialty items for students with food allergies (i.e. gluten free) and baby food for students that require a pureed diet.
Nutrition Services compares prices between US Foods and Smart and Final periodically throughout the year. Smart and Final purchases are made in store and Nutrition Services would have to provide pictures of price tags on the shelf at Smart and Final to show compliance with this request. Nutrition Services requested a price quote for products purchased through US Foods. Unfortunately, the company representative told us their prices are variable based on the market and could change weekly. Nutrition Services would only be able to provide auditors of screenshots
ofUS Foods online ordering portal, which would consist of hundreds of pages given the expansive foods available.
To correct the finding, Nutrition Services will do the following:
1. Request piggybackable formal bid options from US Foods. To that end, the Nutrition Services and Purchasing directors will seek board approval no later than March 1, 2025.
2. Take necessary steps to increase micropurchase threshold to $50,000.
3. Consider opening a Purchase Order with Sysco Foods to spread the micropurchases to another online retailer, thus mitigating the issue of in-person shopping and price comparisons.
4. Work with Purchasing Department to ensure open Purchase Orders do not exceed $50,000 for any vendor that does not have formal procurement in place. To that end, the Nutrition Services Accounting Technician and the Purchasing Supervisor will review quarterly expenditures for all open purchase orders effective December 1, 2024.