City staff told the council about a state-law change that became effective Sept. 1 allowing a city to raise its formal competitive-bidding threshold from $50,000 to $100,000 and proposed a resolution to adopt that alignment and simplify the city's purchasing resolution. Staff said the proposed change would let the city automatically follow state law on the threshold and delegate procedural rules to administration, then bring implementing procedures prepared by purchasing and finance.

Staff said preliminary analysis shows adopting a $100,000 threshold would have reduced the number of agenda items for purchases under the formal bidding threshold by roughly 29–34% in recent fiscal years, speeding procurement for low-value purchases and reducing transactional costs. Staff proposed a Jan. 1 rollout of the change and said emergency purchases and cooperative contracts would be unaffected.

Council members pressed staff about limits and exceptions. Staff said the statute that was changed does not yet alter language in the law that governs delegation of change orders; the existing change-order delegation threshold remains at $50,000 and staff said that would require a future legislative fix to change. Staff also discussed that purchases under the bidding threshold would still be handled with internal procedures and that purchasing would be involved for quotes between $50,000 and $100,000.

In a related procurement discussion, staff presented two options to give the city manager authority to approve routine temporary and permanent easements tied to previously approved projects and, under a broader option, to approve fee-simple tract acquisitions up to a size suggested in the slide (example language used 1 acre). Staff stressed council would retain explicit authority to accept park dedications or other plat dedications and that the city manager language would be permissive (may approve) so council could take non-routine items.

Staff also reviewed local-preference options under state law. The staff memo listed five alternatives: (1) make no change; (2) a tiered policy using 5% local preference for smaller personal-property purchases and 3% for larger or construction contracts above a threshold; (3) 3% across the board; (4) eliminate local preference; and (5) a custom, more-restrictive local policy. Councilmembers discussed fairness to in-city contractors, possible reductions in competition and potential price impacts. Several councilmembers gave informal head nods supporting staff's approach and staff said it would return with a draft resolution.

Next steps: staff will draft a resolution reflecting the council's direction to align the formal competitive-bidding threshold with state law, prepare implementation procedures and return to council for formal adoption. Staff also noted statutory language on change-order delegation would need separate legislative action to change.