For some vehicles that Lake Zurich village staff may want to purchase, Village Board approval may not be required, following a rules change trustees approved earlier this month to help with making timely — and more competitive — buys.
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Essentially, the purchase rules have changed to allow village staff to buy select vehicles without explicit board permission – though trustees will be notified when such a purchase is made. The move is aimed at helping the village remain competitive in a marketplace still troubled by supply issues, according to officials.
With current supply-and-demand woes, sometimes village staff has to move quickly to buy vehicles — in some cases, in one day or only a few days — so department leaders can’t realistically wait for the monthly board meeting to get approval to buy needed vehicles, officials explained.
The ordinance allowing the buys without board permission is temporary and may only apply to vehicles costing up to $707,000.
The measure came at the urging of Village Manager Ray Keller.
“The current state of the automotive and medium truck industries has created extremely long lead times to deliver vehicles and equipment. Order windows are extremely short, as little as one day in some cases,” said Trustee Marc Spacone, reading from the ordinance. “Currently there are no joint purchasing contracts available that would provide the standard process for staff to purchase municipal vehicles.”
The board approved the ordinance without comment, with Trustee Dan Bobrowski absent.
Applicable vehicle purchases will be limited to pickups, police squads and small dump trucks. Other vehicles, like custom-built equipment, ambulances and large construction ones would still follow normal purchasing protocol.
Keller thanked the board and department heads for figuring out a solution “in trying to manage a very fluid and difficult situation.”
He reminded trustees of a previous mention about “dealing now with a three-year window for vehicles that should have arrived this year and vehicles we purchased this year that we’ve not yet been able to secure and, looking ahead, to vehicles we will incorporate into the budget for 2024.
But we need to start ordering now,” said Keller.
Jesse Owens-Wright is a freelancer.