(a) The Purchasing and Claims Payment Policies and/or Procedures authorized by this Council, must encompass all pertinent sections of the City Charter and all sections of the Ohio Revised Code, except as modified by or necessarily inconsistent with the provisions of the City Charter, that relate to purchasing and/or payment of claims by the City, including, but not limited to, Ohio R.C. Sections 5705.38 through 5705.47, and incorporated herein as if reprinted in total.
(b) No contract, agreement, or other obligation involving the expenditure of money shall be entered into, nor shall any ordinance, resolution or order for the expenditure of money be passed or issued by the Council, or be authorized by any officer of the City, unless the Director of Finance shall have first certified in writing to the council, or to the proper officer, as the case may be, that the money required for such contract, agreement, obligation or expenditure is in the Treasury to the credit of the fund from which it is to be drawn and not appropriated for any other purpose. Exhibit "A" is a sample Fiscal Officer's Certification that may be affixed to all legislation, if approved by this Council that deals with any expenditure of money, pursuant to City Charter Section 27. All departmental purchases shall only be executed upon a Purchase Order, approved by the Department Director and duly authorized and certified as to the availability of funds by the Director of Finance as the Fiscal Officer. Exhibit "B", attached hereto, is a sample of the current Purchase Order form utilized by the City of Garfield Heights Finance Department. The Finance Director, may from time to time, change or alter the physical appearance of the Purchase Order form, but at all times the approval of the Department Director, the final authorization of the Finance Director and the Fiscal Officer's Certification must be clearly endorsed upon the face of the purchase order document. It shall be the responsibility of the head of each city department, or his/her designee in his absence, to approve the purchase orders requisitions for their respective departments and have such forwarded to the Director of Finance for final authorization and certification. This essential budgetary function should not be assigned to any other departmental employees so that the department head can accurately maintain the budgets for their individual departments and/or divisions. An original copy of the approved/executed Purchase Order, upon final authorization and certification by the Director of Finance, shall be sent to the vendor identified on the face of the Purchase Order, in order to execute the purchase of the goods and/or services identified in the purchase order.
(c) Public contracts in excess of the municipal bid limit as identified in the Ohio Revised Code Section 735.05, attached as Exhibit "C", shall be advertised and publicly bid pursuant to the City's Charter and State Law. Prior to advertisement of any bid specifications produced by the City, the Finance Director shall affix to the packet, a Fiscal Officer's Certification identifying the availability of unencumbered funds of the City for the contract, agreement, or obligation. Upon opening and analysis of the bids thus received, a recommendation, by the Department Director whose department is affected by the bid contract, shall be submitted to the Board of Control for the approval of the contract and/or agreement thus bid. Upon approval by the Board of Control the bid contract/agreement may be executed by the Mayor, Law Director, and Department Director if needed. In lieu of publicly bidding a particular product or service the City may decide to purchase the product or service through the State of Ohio, Department of Administrative Services, Cooperative Purchasing Network, as was originally approved in 1986, and has been utilized by the City since its inception. The City may also participate in Joint Purchasing Programs with other governmental entities, pursuant to Ohio Revised Code Section 9.48, attached hereto as Exhibit "D".
(d) There shall be in the Department of Finance a Division of Purchases and Supplies. The Commissioner of Purchases and Supplies shall make all purchases for the City in the manner provided by ordinance, and shall, under such regulations as may be provided by ordinance and by the Board of Control, sell all property, real and personal, of the City not needed for public use or that may have become unsuitable for use or that may have been condemned as useless by the director of a department. He shall have charge of such store rooms and warehouses of the City as the Council may by ordinance provide. The Commissioner of Purchases and Supplies, the Finance Director, or his designee, shall cause to be developed, or shall purchase, a consumable inventory software package to be used to track and account for all supplies contained in the various store rooms of the City. As a part of the accounting of the consumable contents of these store room, an annual inventory, as close to the fiscal year end as is possible, shall be performed by the Commission of Purchases and Supplies. The FIFO (first in - first out) inventory method shall be used in the accounting of the contents of the store rooms identified herein. In the absence of a Commissioner of Purchases and supplies, the Director of Finance, or his designee, shall perform the duties assigned to the Commissioner of Purchases and Supplies through the Charter and or legislation approved by City Council.
(e) Only the Director of Finance, or his designee, shall be authorized to enter new vendors into the purchase order system. Prior to any new vendor being added to this system, the vendor shall supply to the City of Garfield Heights a completed IRS Form W-9: Request for Taxpayer Identification Form, and/or any other documentation that shall be required by law. All new vendors shall be processed through the Auditor of State Findings for Recovery Database prior to being added as a new vendor of the City, pursuant to the requirements of ORC Section 9.24. It shall be the Department Directors responsibility to ensure that the Finance Department is given enough time to process a new vendor prior to submitting a purchase order requisition for any purchases from the prospective new vendor.
(f) The use of blanket and super blanket purchase orders is acceptable with the authorization of the Director of Finance, however it is the Department Directors responsibility to maintain a detailed tracking of expenditures against such blanket or super blanket purchase orders in order to ensure that the total amount of funding authorized under the blanket or super blanket is not exceeded. Blanket or super blanket purchase orders shall not be authorized for any period that extends beyond the end of the current fiscal year.
(g) No money shall be drawn from the treasury nor shall any obligation for the expenditure of money be incurred, except pursuant to appropriations made by the Council. Initial annual appropriations approved by City Council should be based on expected expenditures for each budgetary category appropriated based on historical data of like type purposes purchased in past years and known contractual commitments for the upcoming fiscal year.
(h) No warrant for the payment of any claim shall be issued until such claim shall have been approved in writing by the head of the department for which the obligation was incurred. All documentation, such as, but not limited to, packing slips, pick tickets, delivery forms, received with and delivery or acquisition of goods or services authorized under any purchase order of the City shall be legibly signed by the department head, or his designee, identifying that all goods or services approved under the purchase order for the individual purchases have been received. The department head, or his designee, should make any notes upon the face of such documentation as may be necessary to indicate the exact nature and condition of all items and/or services received, that all such goods and services have been received to the City in good and acceptable form and are free and clear from any defects. If any defects are identified, or the order thus received is not complete the employee receiving the order shall note such on the face of any documentation received with the delivery. All forms received by any employee charged with receiving such goods or services shall be forwarded to the Finance Department in the next business days interoffice mail service for inclusion into the payment packet compiled for the payment of all City purchases. Normally, no payment will be made until all goods or services are received by the City unless prior arrangements have been made with the Finance Director. Payments of Twenty Dollars ($20.00) or less may be paid in cash through the various petty cash funds approved by City Council under separate legislation. Each head of a department and his surety shall be liable to the City for all loss and damage sustained by the City by reason of the negligent or corrupt approval of any claim against the City in his Department. The Director of Finance shall have power to require evidence that the amount of the claim is justly due and is in conformity to law and ordinance, and for that purpose he may summon before him any officer, agent or employee of any department of this City, and claimant or other person, and examine him upon oath or affirmation relative thereto.
(i) Detailed purchasing procedures, attached hereto as Exhibit "E", identify the various steps and personnel involved in the purchasing process. These procedures may be amended from time to time by the Director of Finance as may be required due to changes in technology utilized by the Finance Department, however all such procedural alterations shall comply with the basic policies contained in this ordinance and or in State of Ohio law.
(j) The general laws of the State of Ohio, as may be amended from time to time, relating to budgets, appropriations, deposits, expenditures, debts, bonds, contracts, and other fiscal matters of municipalities shall be applicable to this City, except as modified by or necessarily inconsistent with the provisions of the City Charter.
(Ord. 20-2013. Passed 3-25-13.)