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Show Tax Group Urges Sound . Utah Purchasing System GREATER emphasis upon ad-herance ad-herance to sound purchasing procedures pro-cedures by the State of Utah is urged in a research report released re-leased ty Utah Foundation, the non-profit i?.x ;e?earch . agency. According to the Foundation re-' port, private business places more emphasis upon the importance impor-tance of technically qualified personnel in their purchasing than does the State of Utah, although al-though this may be reflected in higher cost of the purchasing function. The Utah Foundation report states that management of private pri-vate business is of the opinion that the relatively small cost of a qualified purchasing staff is well justified by economy in the price paid for materials, equipment equip-ment and supplies. The report notes that the present staff of the purchasing department consists con-sists of ten women employees. 1 i i ACCORDING to the Utah Foundation study of Utah state purchasing methods there have been inconsistencies in the purchase pur-chase of road equipment in recent re-cent years. These are enumerated enumer-ated as: (1) awarding the order to other than the low bidder, (2) splitting up an order, giving part !o one dealer and part to an-' other, although different prices i were bid, (3) disqualifying the1 low bidder because of his failing fail-ing to meet what appears to be a minor specification detail, (4) securing a total of only 1 or 2 bids instead of several, (5) experimenting exper-imenting with various types or brands of equipment to determine deter-mine their serviceability. The Utah Foundation study also al-so reports that the purchasing standardization committee set up by the Reorganization Law in 1941 has not carried out its function func-tion of classifying supplies, materials ma-terials and equipment, and specifying spec-ifying standards of quantity and quality to control their purchase. The renort states that much cf the state's printing is contracted con-tracted upon the basis of a fixed schedule of prices, thus largely eliminating competitive bidding. In 1947, the state purchased nn'ntipj? nmounting to S209.973 from 70 different printing firms. During the fiscal year 1948, the purchasing agent for the State of Utah placed a total of 26 408 purchase orders amounting amount-ing to $4,580,096, according to the report of the citizens tax research re-search agency. This averaged 2,201 purchase orders a month with a dollar volume of $381,675. The peak in purchase orders placed for fiscal year 1948 was reached . in June, when the amount totaled $644,546. The Foundation- report points out that more than one-third 10,356 or 39 per cent of the 26,408 purchase orders issued in 1948 were for the road commission com-mission for the purchase of road equipment, supplies and materials. mater-ials. i i 1 IN 1943-44, when it was especially espe-cially difficult for the state to obtain all the supplies and equipment equip-ment it needed because of the war, a low point in the amount of purchase orders placed was reached, according to the research re-search report. The $1,962,043 in purchase orders placed in 1944 was considerably less than half the $4,580,098 volume placed in 1948. Operating costs for the state purchasing department totaled $30,505 for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1948, with $24,691 going go-ing for personal services. $632 for travel expense, and $5,182 for current expense. Although the law gives the purchasing department rcsponsi- bility for inventory control over all departments, the state purchasing pur-chasing agent does not maintain a central inventory record for all property of the state. Study of the possibility of consolidating con-solidating the central storeroom maintained by the purchasing department with the storeroom maintained by the tax commission commis-sion is suggested by the Utah Foundation renort. |