Catawba County News
Catawba County 101: Purchasing
Published: February 02, 2024
The mission of Catawba County’s Purchasing Department is to provide procurement services to all County Departments using experience, integrity and courtesy; and to assist in providing quality products, goods and services which meet or exceed expectations while promoting open competition and complying with all applicable laws. Purchasing achieves that mission by offering high level customer service, keeping well-informed of procurement trends, creating strong vendor relationships and staying current on legal changes that alter government procurement requirements. A few of the services offered by Purchasing are answering procurement related questions, soliciting informal quotes, bidding formal procurement and construction projects, administration of County wide contracts, administration of business accounts such as Amazon and Verizon, disposal of surplus property, and managing Catawba County merchandise.
The Purchasing Department serves all Departments in Catawba County with their procurement needs. In addition to serving the citizens of Catawba County, we serve the citizens of Catawba County by being good stewards of taxpayer dollars by obtaining quality purchases at the best cost within all procurement guidelines.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Finance Department:
- Staff process over 25K disbursement vouchers annually.
- Direct management and oversight of specific federal and state awards totaling over $100M.
- Investment of idle County funds and management of a $220M+ investment portfolio.
- Perform debt management activities including payment of debt service, ongoing required reporting, the planning, executing, and overseeing of all underwriting and debt issuance for new debt financing as well as refinancing to meet cash needs for capital projects, public schools, and CVCC. Outstanding debt for the County as of 6/30/23 was approximately $178M. The County is also responsible for debt issuance for Catawba Valley Medical Center, although CVMC is responsible for servicing the debt.
- Responsible for requesting and coordinating the drawdown of NC lottery funds for public school projects.
- During FY23 Purchasing staff processed and approved over $31.5M in purchase orders.
- Over the last six months, the Purchasing Department has sold 1,349 Catawba County merchandise items. Purchasing is working with Technology to create an online store for employees to purchase Catawba County merchandise……stay tuned.
- Responsible for preparing the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, which presents the overall financial position of the County. Staff also coordinate the annual audit with external auditors.
- Responsible for recording all transactions in the financial system including all electronic deposits received from an array of funding sources. Staff investigate and communicate with departments to verify purposes for the funding in order to obtain the correct information to record revenue. Staff record on average 2,772 journal entries per month.
- Daily disbursement to municipalities of property tax collections received.