1. Move forward with the nomination of Jamin Pursell to fill the Environmental Organization seat through December 31, 2024;
2. Delay the nominations of Heidi Taylor and Gretchen Salter until more recruitment is done in Supervisor Burgis' District;
3. Move Frank Qin's nomination to an Industry seat directly to the Board's consent calendar once the vacancy posting period has elapsed.

The Arts Council will connect, to communicate, support, and advocate for Contra Costa's creative community.  The vision values and mission are distilled into goals with detailed specific action items, a projected 5 year operating budget and organizational structure, all providing a blueprint for the organization selected by the Board of Supervisors to be its public private partner. In delivering a full portfolio of services, the County itself will play an essential role as the contracting entity, investing budgeted funds to help ensure that this effort is successfully launched and can become sustainable.

The remainder of the report document includes considerable background as well as data collected by the consultant over the past 10 months. The team is still working with a graphic designer to clean up and update some of the images in the draft report, so there may be a few replacements before it comes before the full Board of Supervisors. 

Ben Miyagi commented about how the Master Plan highlights the rich diversity of the county.  Lara DeLaney added that the Master Plan would eventually be translated into Spanish and possibly additional languages.

Vice Chair Burgis requested that pie charts be added, based on pages on 38 and 39, to better illustrate the differing levels of activity among districts.  She explained that District 3 is growing and still young, not as established in the arts and culture community as some of the more developed districts.

Margo commented that the Steering Committee is working with a consultant to design an interactive cultural map showcasing arts and culture organizations.  The map would enable organizations to add themselves to the map.  This effort is targeted to roll out targeted in September for the Arts Council to maintain going forward.

Chair Andersen thanked the whole Steering Committee, as well as Rick Stein, for attending the IOC meeting and also for their work, which exceeded her expectation.  She has received positive feedback on the draft Master Plan.  

With Vice Chair Burgis's suggestion to add pie charts, the Committee voted to move the draft Master Plan to the Board of Supervisors for discussion at a future meeting.

Timothy Ewell presented the staff report and recommendations.  The goal of the purchasing policy update is to better guide and support staff who may be trying to navigate their way through the County's maze of purchasing and service contract policies. The update consolidates nine separate administrative bulletins related to purchasing and contracting into one comprehensive policy.  The new policy references some related special purchasing policies that will remain separate, such as the Small Business Enterprise, environmentally preferable procurement policy, and computer hardware and software policy, so that the comprehensive policy can survive policy updates within the separate policies and also to avoid creating conflicting policies.  The special policies will act as "plug-ins' to the comprehensive policy.  This first update is the first phase of a multi-phase project.  Trailer actions, such as ordinance revisions, will be required to effectuate the recommended updates.

Our current procurement policy landscape is a patchwork of ordinances, resolutions, board orders, and administrative bulletins from the County Administrators office, and some are just simple memos that have been issued over the years. The myriad sources for policies presents difficulties for new and current employees who are newly assigned procurement related functions.

The recommended policy will return some discretion to our department heads to recommend contracts under $200,000 for approval by the Purchasing Agent.  For reference, the Health Services Department alone has about 1,700 contracts outstanding at any given time, that heretofore have required County Administrator approval. The CAO believes the amount of risk mitigated by CAO review of contracts under $200,000 does not justify the significant amount of time expended by CAO staff, which might better be applied to higher risk transactions.  The proposed delegation of contract authority would be balanced by new required contract monitoring procedures and solicitation thresholds.  Contract monitoring will necessitate that departments incorporate performance measurement and performance outcomes in their contract service plans.

The recommended policy will also streamline transactions that involve both a purchase of a commodity and a service, e.g., purchase of a copier with related installation and maintenance services.  Such a purchase must currently be accomplished in two separate transactions, which is not the industry standard and has caused consternation among vendors.  The proposed policy will permit such duel purchases to be combined into one transaction.

The recommended policy will establish, for the first time, minimum bid solicitation requirements by procurement type.  Transactions over $100,000 should be competitively bid, unless other requirements stipulate more stringent thresholds.  We are also encouraging the use of cooperative purchasing agreements such as pre-negotiated rates through the U.S. General Services Administration, which can be accepted in lieu of a new solicitation.

The policy review process involved County departments, and the staff report includes all 78 comments and suggestions from 7 departments, along with responses to every comment and rationale for either agreeing or not agreeing with them.

In May, the County implemented Docusign, utilizing digital versions of our most common standard form contracts.  Docusign eliminates the need and requirement for signature notarization -- a use of new technology to help streamline the County's contracting process.

For Phase 2 of this effort, the CAO plans to concentrate on the County's SBE and Outreach Programs, with a goal of combining those policies into one administrative bulletin that will plug into the umbrella purchasing policy. The Board's Equity Committee is reviewing these programs for possible update. 

Phase 3 contemplates updating the County's purchasing manual and our Contract Administration guide, which are procedural manuals.

Phase 4 will focus on developing a training library on all of these policy changes. 

CAO is recommending that the County procurement policies be placed on a triennial review schedule to maintain their relevance.

Chair Andersen was very supportive of these changes.  Vice Chair Burgis appreciated the additional accountability included in the updated policy.  The Committee appreciated the fresh look at the current policies and processes and approved moving the recommended policy to the Board on the Consent calendar.