Two special districts in Nassau County have joined the bi-county Long Island Intergovernmental Purchasing Council.
The Jericho Water District and the Port Washington Water Pollution Control District are the latest municipal entities to join the purchasing consortium intended to reduce costs of good and services by leveraging the buying power of local governments and school districts.
The LIPC was created in August by a joint resolution signed by Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy.
“I am pleased to welcome the Jericho Water District and the Port Washington Water Pollution Control District as they join our efforts to protect taxpayers from wasteful spending,” Mangano said in a statement.
Officials from the Jericho Water District issued a statement saying, “The District joined the LIPC in the interest of reducing the cost of water supply chemicals and other consumable goods.”
The two districts joined more than a dozen towns, village and cities in the LIPC, including the Towns of Oyster Bay and Brookhaven, City of Glen Cove and the Villages of Kings Point, Laurel Hollow, Mineola, Northport and Patchogue have also elected to opt into the Long Island Purchasing Consortium.
School districts are notably absent from the list. Several school board superintendents in Nassau County have questioned the vaguely defined restrictive nature of the purchasing agreements the LIPC requires from its members. School board superintendents have suggested that joining the LIPC would stifle their freedom to shop for bids from other state consortia or BOCES.
“It’s like buying a pig in a poke,” one school board attorney said.
Both counties are urging school districts to reconsider their decisions to not join the LIPC.
The more entities that join, the deeper discounts the LIPC could ostensibly realize for its purchase.
The LIPC recently awarded its first bid for multipurpose office paper.
Nassau County is expected to save $57,000 on its paper purchases, and Suffolk County is projected to save $50,000 on its paper buys as a result.
