COMPETITIVE BIDDING WORKS!

An Open Letter to the County Commission and Administrator.

Competitive bidding works!  I recently upgraded my x-ray equipment to digital and spent the better part of a month negotiating individually with four different vendors trying to get the best price.  After all that time I only managed to get the price down $ 500 along with offers to include some free optional software and lots of rhetoric about the great price they were giving me and their great service.  It finally dawned on me to do what any good business or government purchaser should do.  I sent them all a request for competitive bid letter informing them that this would be a one-time bid and to send me their best prices.  One Salesman immediately emailed back stating, “You are a very smart man.  I will sharpen my pencil and give you a great price.”  And he did. Magically overnight the price dropped by almost $ 3000, plus the free software and the great service.

Luckily, I did not believe what the sales people were initially telling me. The competitive bid process quickly cleared the air.  My savings went from under 2% to over 10% because they had to bid.  To have any hope of getting the contract, they had to give their true best price.

The county commission recently changed county regulations to allow them to extend waste haulers contracts without going out to bid. This is a 10 year $ 105 million dollar decision. Should it be based solely on negotiations with the vendor’s and their rhetoric about price and service? A 10% savings here would save the taxpayers over a million dollars a year. Even half of that is a nice chunk of change. Competitive bidding is the only way to know you are getting the best price. Commissioners, solid waste is a competitive business and competitive bidding works. You should try it.

Dr. Ross Williams

Key West