Purchasing Partners

KCDA Purchasing

School board members in King County founded KCDA Purchasing in 1938. The purpose of this nonprofit association is to create volume purchasing, fulfill bid law requirements, manage centralized receiving and distribution and offer single-source purchasing for school supplies, furniture, equipment and services requested by its owner/members. KCDA Purchasing is available to cities through its associate membership.

For detailed information, visit KCDA Purchasing website at www.kcda.org.

National Purchasing Partners

AWC is a sponsoring member of National Purchasing Partners (NPP), a group purchasing organization (GPO). A GPO allows members to acquire goods and services at lower prices. The program doesn't cost cities anything to participate and you get the benefit of group pricing. If you have a purchase that requires a competitive bid, NPP also has a service where they help you put the RFP together and then allow other cities to receive the same price your city gets through the process. Joining is as easy as accessing the NPP site (www.mynpp.com) and signing up for a login. After you join, as a member, you can use the pricing on the items listed either as a quote/bid on an item or, for the "competitively bid" items, that have gone through the public purchasing competitive bid process.

To learn more about how to register your city and access cost saving Price Agreements, please call (800) 810-3909 or visit www.mynpp.com.

U.S. Communities

AWC is a sponsoring member of the U.S. Communities Government Purchasing Alliance, a national purchasing program for public agencies that gives you significant price and resource savings. U.S. Communities gives local governments the ability to piggyback on publicly bid government contracts. You pay no membership fee and no minimum purchase is required.

For detailed information, visit www.uscommunities.org or call U.S. Communities toll-free at 1-866-GPA-SHOP for an automated listing of product and vendor contact information.

WA State Department of Corrections

The Department of Corrections, Correctional Industries offers eligible customers quick and easy access to quality products and services that are produced or provided in whole or in part from inmate work programs. In addition, Department of Corrections has created partnerships with federal, state, county, city and community groups to employ offender work crews.

For detailed information, visit the Department of Corrections website at www.doc.wa.gov/business/correctionalindustries.asp.

WA State Department of General Administration

The Department of General Administration develops and administers contracts for goods and services with an estimated term value of approximately $600 million on behalf of state agencies, colleges and universities, select non profit organizations, and local governments. For more information, call (360) 902-7400 or send e-mail to pcamail@ga.wa.gov.

To find out more, link to www.ga.wa.gov/Purchase/index.html.

TechMall – WA State Department of Information Services (DIS)

DIS provides a core set of common services and infrastructures – shared services designed for use by customers. Common services enable innovation and economies of scale, that leverage investments and increase efficiencies.

These systems are essential to the delivery of public services to millions of people – around the clock and throughout the year. The critical nature of these public services means these IT systems must be high quality and reliable. DIS has built redundancy, security, and disaster recovery capabilities into Washington’s IT infrastructure.

For detailed information, visit Department of Information Services TechMall at http://techmall.dis.wa.gov/.

WA State Department of Printing

The State Department of Printing allows cities who have a signed inter-local agreement on file to use online print ordering to create and order business cards, letterhead and envelopes without leaving your desk. Your city can enter information, proof online, and submit orders via the Internet. Using this service can save your city 20 to 50 percent off the cost of ordering business cards manually, with a decreased turnaround time of up to 67 percent.

For detailed information, visit the Department of Printing Web site at www.prt.wa.gov or call 360-570-5555.

Win-Win Program

More than 130 regional government agencies, including municipalities, sewer and fire districts, housing authorities, libraries, and law enforcement use King County Fleet Administration Division for their fleet services. In addition to fleet services, participating agencies can benefit from auction of surplus vehicles; piggyback on vehicle and equipment purchases; get vehicle maintenance at the lowest competitive prices; purchase fuel; emergency preparedness supplies and shop for more than 6,000 other supplies.

For detailed information, visit www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/kcdot/FleetAdministration.aspx.