Cuyahoga County’s purchasing and innovation offices described process changes and outreach intended to speed procurement and capture savings.

Paul Porter, director of purchasing, said the department’s proposed 2026–27 budget is mostly personnel costs and that purchasing processes now support roughly 1,160 active contracts and more than 5,000 purchase orders for 2025 to date. He said recent code changes (revisions to county code chapter 501) enabled faster processing for low‑dollar transactions; transactions in the $5,000–$10,000 range that previously took 12–17 days to process now often clear in about three days.

Porter and Council President Miller highlighted work to improve vendor access, including vendor fairs and a new streamlined solicitation template for out‑of‑home care services to make it easier for vendors to respond and be paid when compliant documentation is submitted. Porter said purchasing continues to support vendor registration and outreach and that the department administers procurement cards, the office supplies contract and vendor help desk functions.

Katie Gallagher, deputy chief of operations and community innovation, summarized the Office of Innovation and Performance’s training tracks and project work. She said green‑belt/black‑belt projects and a small central innovation team help departments find process improvements; she said 2024 projects returned about $5 million in savings and 2025 projects have tracked about $7 million in potential savings. Gallagher described voluntary training, board and commission process cleanups and other innovations the office supports.