[Knox County] Taxpayers could end up paying for charter mess

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 6/27/6 | SCOTT BARKER

[SmithL]

Dissolving the Knox County charter would gum up the government's purchasing machine and wind up costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars because of computer upgrades, an increased workload and personnel costs.

Deputy Law Director Mary Ann Stackhouse outlined the problem to Knox County Chancellor John Weaver during a hearing Monday morning on the legal fate of the charter, which Weaver ruled invalid June 9.

While listing the effects of dissolving the charter, Stackhouse told Weaver the procurement code would be invalid if his charter ruling becomes final.

Right now, she said, the procurement code allows purchases of less than $10,000 to be made without a competitive bidding process. Without the charter, Stackhouse said, a 1980 private act requires competitive bidding on purchases as little as $1,000.

After the hearing, Purchasing Director Hugh Holt said his office would have to increase the number of bids it handles seven-fold because of a lower bid limit and completely revamp its computer software. Holt said his six-person staff would be overwhelmed with more work if the change has to be made.

Holt said the Purchasing Department awarded 258 bids and managed 425 previously awarded contracts during the past year, he said.

Operating under the 1980 private act would have resulted in 3,620 bids during the same time frame, he said.

"That's an over 700 percent increase in the workload," Holt said.

Rewriting software, possibly adding employees and using less efficient procurement procedures would cost taxpayers money, Holt said, though he didn't provide an estimate for the increased cost.

Right now, Holt said, the county has more than 3,500 registered vendors who can place bids for county services electronically. The charter's demise would pull the plug on electronic bidding, he said.

Dropping the bid limit would also render "about 90 percent" of the department's new software program useless. The program cost more than $100,000, and would require a complete revamping to comply with the changes in the way the department would have to do business.

Smaller purchases would be affected, too. The county would have to scrap its purchasing card program, which allows employees to make smaller purchases at negotiated prices from pre-approved vendors by using a purchasing card.

Without the program, Holt said, each purchase would have to be approved ahead of time using cumbersome requisition forms. More employees might be needed, he said, to handle the additional work.