Tom,
I would agree - the Charter assuredly will control. I've seen Charter
provisions that allow the Council to establish regulations that can be
applied to establish exceptions to the general bidding requirement. But if
the Charter establishes a dollar threshold, then the only way around that
would be if the Charter also allowed the Council to alter that threshold
(in the future) by ordinance.
I've got a similar issue - I've got a Charter provision that sets a $7,500
threshold for competitive bidding on public improvements.
It probably is worth a discussion about whether there would be an
appetite to pursue a Charter amendment to remove the dollar threshold and
shift it to an amount to be set by ordinance. We've had that discussion off
and on over the years regarding my Charter provision on public improvements
and there wasn't an appetite to pursue a change. Admittedly, we haven't
revisited that discussion after the legislature increased the threshold in
the competitive bidding act - mostly because there hasn't been a reason to
because the public improvements we have pursued have all exceeded that
threshold. Maybe someday...
Matt
On Thu, Jun 5, 2025 at 10:23 AM Tom Marcum via Oama oama@lists.imla.org
wrote:
Good morning, all. One of the cities I very recently began working with
has some antiquated charter provisions that severely limit spending without
a bid/proposal process making things very burdensome on staff. Basically
says that no expenditure more than $1,500 shall be made by the municipality
except when done utilizing sealed proposals. The code of ordinances is
much less restrictive but, given the conflict, it seems that the charter
controls. Any workaround other than amending the charter? Thanks.
--
Thomas Marcum
Durant City Attorney
tmarcum@durant.org
Oama mailing list -- oama@lists.imla.org
To unsubscribe send an email to oama-leave@lists.imla.org
Tom,
I would agree - the Charter assuredly will control. I've seen Charter
provisions that allow the Council to establish regulations that can be
applied to establish exceptions to the general bidding requirement. But if
the Charter establishes a dollar threshold, then the only way around that
would be if the Charter also allowed the Council to alter that threshold
(in the future) by ordinance.
I've got a similar issue - I've got a Charter provision that sets a $7,500
threshold for competitive bidding on public improvements.
It probably is worth a discussion about whether there would be an
appetite to pursue a Charter amendment to remove the dollar threshold and
shift it to an amount to be set by ordinance. We've had that discussion off
and on over the years regarding my Charter provision on public improvements
and there wasn't an appetite to pursue a change. Admittedly, we haven't
revisited that discussion after the legislature increased the threshold in
the competitive bidding act - mostly because there hasn't been a reason to
because the public improvements we have pursued have all exceeded that
threshold. Maybe someday...
Matt
On Thu, Jun 5, 2025 at 10:23 AM Tom Marcum via Oama <oama@lists.imla.org>
wrote:
> Good morning, all. One of the cities I very recently began working with
> has some antiquated charter provisions that severely limit spending without
> a bid/proposal process making things very burdensome on staff. Basically
> says that no expenditure more than $1,500 shall be made by the municipality
> except when done utilizing sealed proposals. The code of ordinances is
> much less restrictive but, given the conflict, it seems that the charter
> controls. Any workaround other than amending the charter? Thanks.
>
> --
> Thomas Marcum
> Durant City Attorney
> tmarcum@durant.org
> --
> Oama mailing list -- oama@lists.imla.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to oama-leave@lists.imla.org
>
