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Administrator Balczun advised that one of the things that has been put in place and that they hope to expand is a process to take care of those items that are repetitiously purchased during the year. Historically a department would go through all the paperwork to reprocess those purchases each time they were made during the year. A term contract more or less relates to creating the paperwork and processing it one time by setting up the sequencing mechanism within the initial purchase order, and it thus reduces the amount of the paperwork. In example, if we have a contract for 12,000 units of something we customarily consume at the rate of 1,000 units a month, we can set up an initial purchase order for the 12,000 units and theoretically schedule 1,000 units a month depending on demand as opposed to going through this purchasing cycle of 1,000 units every month. Commissioner Eggert stated that to her 1,000 units a month preplanned is not the same as "departments will be able to order supplies directly from the vendors on an 'as need' basis." Purchasing Manager Ambler commented that Item 10 on today's agenda is a term contract for utility chemicals, such as chlorine. In the past they issued about 60 purchase orders a year for these chemicals, and he will issue about 7 in the coming year, which is a dramatic reduction. Chairman Scurlock believed that you can actually bid the catalog for something like office supplies, for instance, and he wished to know why we have to have another employee when they are streamlining the process and cutting back on the paperwork. Purchasing Manager Ambler noted that they haven't felt the full effect of these reductions yet. This is the first term contract; they are piled up with paperwork; and have to get it down to a level they can manage. Chairman Scurlock asked what has happened since OMB Director Baird handled this function in the past. 46 L!i_dAR 2 9 1988 BOOK 71 PAGE 403