Happy National Preparedness Month! For the remainder of the month of September, dozens of public service announcements will be reaching out to thousands of families across the United States – encouraging them to talk about prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery from natural disasters. While those families pack their emergency kits and lay out their disaster plans, public entities across the nation are turning to the General Service Administration's (GSA) Disaster Purchasing Program, and other cooperative purchasing programs, for their own preparedness, response, and recovery.

What Is A Cooperative Purchasing Program?

Cooperative purchasing programs exist to provide state and local governments with a time-saving and cost-effective process for acquiring goods and services. These programs solicit bids through a competitive process to establish contracts for certain products and/or services. These products and/or services are then made available through the respective cooperative purchasing program, which certain public entities can then utilize.

Cooperative purchasing programs can save public entities hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars – one jurisdiction estimated that the process for issuing and competing a contract could cost approximately $250,000 in time and resources. By using these programs, customers can take advantage of systems that have already completed the procurement process, including RFP development, legal evaluation, advertisement, Q&A, review of proposals, and contract negotiation. In this time of budget cuts, public entities can simply participate in a cooperative purchasing program or contract vehicle that provides the right combination of products and services they need without putting strain on already limited resources.

There are numerous cooperative purchasing programs that exist, each serving a different area or portion of the country. Some programs serve only hyper-local markets, while others operate at the state, regional, and national level, such as the programs provided by GSA.

Big Programs are Now Available to Smaller Entities

Listed by the National Association of State Procurement Officials as one of the top-five most popular programs, the GSA's cooperative purchasing program has for years been a preferred program for public entities. Our own response and recovery services are listed on their Disaster Purchasing Program, and can be used not only for disaster response and recovery, but also for preparedness. The trouble was that these schedules were never made available to public entities below the federal level – until now.

With National Preparedness Month upon us, local and state entities should take advantage of GSA's Disaster Purchasing Program, and others like it. By using such programs, state and local entities can not only be prepared for the next disaster, but can benefit directly from the market share leveraged by the larger government consumers.

Operating representatives not sure of the laws addressing intergovernmental purchases can visit the U.S. Communities  map to find out more about a state's Intergovernmental Purchasing Statues. For further questions about GSA and other cooperative purchasing programs that entities can secure Dewberry's services through, please contact Shandi Treloar at [email protected].