Northport Gains 'Purchasing Power'

is the first Suffolk village to join the Long Island Purchasing Consortium — a regional effort rolled out by at the start of this year to create regional buying power for common goods and services that could be purchased cooperatively by municipalities, schools and not-for-profit agencies.

The Northport Village Board unanimously voted to approve a resolution Thursday, Nov. 4 to join the consortium; County Executive Levy and Mayor George Doll signed a ceremonial agreement Monday at Village Hall.

"Simply put, this will save us money," Doll said.

"If Long Island were a state, it would be bigger than 19 other states," Levy said Monday. "That, my friends, is some awesome purchasing power. How much will it save? We're not sure yet, but even if it is just 10 percent that's a tremendous savings."

Under the proposal developed by Levy, the Long Island Purchasing Consortium would identify common products and services —for example, purchases with common industry wide standards or those that are purchased in large quantities such as paper, office supplies and fuel oils—and coordinate a joint bid. Other commodities for consideration in the early stages of this joint purchasing proposal include water, wastewater chemicals, lumber, paint and fencing.

"This is not re-inventing the wheel, this is making the wheel larger for maximum efficiency," said Levy. "A local consortium with voluminous buying power is likely to produce more competitive pricing from local firms than is found on the statewide lists."

The first item that was put out to bid was paper and Levy said with the municipalities that have joined the consortium, the paper purchase was quadruples.

"Bids for the paper order are due November 15 and after that we will move on to fuel, office supplies . . . Anything that's purchased for government can be purchased together for savings," Levy said.

The purchasing consortium is envisioned to establish lower costs through volume and regionalization, and save taxpayer dollars by elimination of duplicative administrative efforts. It could also create additional savings opportunities for school districts above the BOCES concept.

Though in its infancy the combined municipal purchasing effort already includes Suffolk and Nassau counties, Brookhaven Town – Suffolk's largest – the Town of Oyster Bay, the Village of Mineola and now the Village of Northport.