Hart County to Study Revamping Bid/Purchasing Plan

A Hart County commissioner is calling for the board and county staff to put on their thinking caps and come up with a better way to put out requests for bids.

At Tuesday’s regular meeting, commissioner Ricky Carter said he is committed to improving the county’s economy and one way he said that could be done is by giving local businesses a better chance at bidding on county projects, goods and services.

“One of the main reasons I ran for this office was to help create economic opportunity in any way possible,” Carter told the board. “I feel this should always be one of our main priorities in any decision we make.  I understand it’s not the responsibility of government to create jobs, but it is the responsibility of government to create an environment that encourages job creation.”

Carter said he and County Administrator Jon Caime have been meeting with the Archway Partnership group to come up with a plan.  He said Archway is planning to commission a study on ways to encourage local participation.

“Archway will furnish the funds to pay the Institute of Government to come in and do a study on our bid and purchasing system, along with doing a study on other counties our size” he said. “They will try to come up with ways to actually encourage local participation. It won’t cost Hart County one dime to do that.”

Carter said a method must be devised to encourage local businesses to get involved in the bid process.

“This is a no lose situation,” he said. “We may end up with a good bid system. And we may end up with some local participation. I think that’s economic development at its best.”

However, Caime noted Archway will pay for the Carl Vinson Institute to do the study.

“We do want to make sure we narrow the scope as to what it is we’re trying to get out of this product,” Caime told the board. “It will cost Archway Partnership to hire the Carl Vinson Institute of Government.  So one, I want to make sure the entire commission is on board with the initiatives with Mr. Carter. The other thing is, make sure we define the scope of what we want out of this product.”

After hearing from Caime and Carter, no vote was taken to move forward but no objections to the Archway study were raised.