We appreciate your interest and hope this brief document will be of benefit to you as an interested supplier or as one of our many current suppliers. Our goal is to be helpful to you in your sales effort while conducting our procurement function in an open, fair and competitive manner. This document is designed to improve communication and participation in the County bid process.

The purchasing function is important not only to businesses that wish to participate, but to all taxpayers who are concerned with the prudent expenditure of public funds. The Purchasing Division has an obligation to the citizens of the County to obtain the maximum value for each purchase and to provide reliable service to support the various County Departments and agencies serving the community.

The County's procurement process can be described in several basic steps. First, the County department identifies its need and submits a requisition to the Purchasing Division. The Purchasing Division then identifies available sources for that need and determines by bid or agreement the price the County will pay. The Purchasing Division generates a purchase order, submits it to the Auditor-Controller for encumbrance and then issues it to the awarded vendor. However, in reality, the process is more complex than stated.

View details of the Bidding, Award, & Purchasing Process

Responsibilities of the Purchasing Division

Various State of California Government Codes and Kern County’s Ordinance Codes place the responsibility of acquiring the County's needs for items of personal property and certain contractual services with the County's Purchasing Agent. The Assistant County Administrative Officer for General Services also holds the title of Purchasing Agent. Many of the tasks of the Purchasing Agent are delegated to the professional staff of the Purchasing Division. Presently, this staff consists of one Purchasing Manager, one Supervising Buyers, one Contract Administrator, three Buyers and one support staff position. The buyers are assigned specific commodities to purchase making it possible for them to become highly familiar with the commodities, they way they are used by County departments and the vendors which supply these commodities.

It is important for vendors doing business with the County to understand that with few exceptions only the Board of Supervisors and the Purchasing Agent have the authority to obligate the County of any expenditure. For minor purchases, the Purchasing Agent has delegated some of his authority directly to the County departments.

Responsibilities of the Purchasing Agent

It is the responsibility of the Purchasing Agent and those in the Purchasing Division to purchase a wide variety of materials, supplies, equipment and services to support the operations of all County departments. These items include emergency vehicles, heavy equipment, furniture, public health supplies and crime lab supplies, software, electronic equipment, office equipment and supplies, food, clothing for inmates, petroleum products, library books and periodicals, road surface materials and much, much more. Purchased services include office equipment maintenance, hazardous waste removal, paper shredding and recycling, landscaping, advertising, facility repairs, lab testing and hundreds of other services. In other words, just about anything you could imagine in order for the various County departments to provide their services to the community.

In addition the Purchasing Agent is responsible for renting and negotiating lease-purchase agreements of personal property and through the Construction Services Division engaging the services of independent contractors to construct or repair buildings or structures up to an amount of $200,000 per project. The Construction Services Division of General Services handles the larger capital projects over $200,000.

Responsibilities of Other County Departments

County departments have the responsibility to identify and determine their functional requirements for the goods and services they need to perform their tasks and then submit those requests to the Purchasing Division to process.

Limitations of the Purchasing Agent

There are certain things, that by County Code, the Purchasing Agent is prohibited from doing. Specifically, the Purchasing Agent is not allowed to contract legal briefs or contract for any type of service over $200,000 annually unless he is directed to do so by the Board of Supervisors.

By County Code, the Purchasing Agent cannot confirm an unauthorized purchase made by a County employee when the conditions of an emergency did not exist or the amount is over $50,000. Customarily, those transactions are the responsibility of the individual making the purchase, unless the Board of Supervisors authorized the purchase.