Mangano Announces New Additions To Bi-County Purchasing Consortium

Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano today announced that 18 more Nassau County municipalities and school districts have expressed interest in being a part of the Long Island Intergovernmental Purchasing Council (LIPC) to help cut taxpayer costs and execute bulk purchases for common goods and services.

One of those – the Village of Laurel Hollow – just became the seventh municipality to officially join the Consortium, which will pool the buying power of several local governments in order to receive significant discounts on common products. The Laurel Hollow Village Board passed a resolution on November 23 to join, calling it a “no-brainer.”

The LIPC was created in August by joint resolution signed by Nassau County Executive Mangano and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy.

“As we continue to search for ways to save taxpayer dollars, it only makes sense to have more districts and governments join our efforts to protect taxpayers from wasteful spending,” said Mangano. “The invitation stands for all municipalities to join us in this cost-cutting initiative.”

The Villages of Roslyn Harbor, Hewlett Bay Park, Kings Park, Stewart Manor, Plandome Heights, North Hills, East Rockaway, Lynbrook, Upper Brookville and the City of Long Beach notified the County of its interest in joining the LIPC.

In addition, the East Rockaway, Elmont, Roslyn, Valley Stream #30, Levittown, Long Beach and Hewlett-Woodmere School Districts contacted the County to learn more about the Consortium.

They join Nassau and Suffolk County governments, the Towns of Oyster Bay and Brookhaven, and the Villages of Mineola, Patchogue and Northport.

Mangano recently sent an invitation to all of Nassau’s local governments and school districts, extending an invitation to be a part of the LIPC. The mission of the LIPC is to reduce costs by achieving economies of scale created through volume purchasing and reduced or eliminated duplicative administrative costs. The LIPC operates at no cost to participating members and the daily operations of the LIPC are performed by Council members, with Nassau and Suffolk counties rotating responsibility for individual bids.

Membership in the LIPC is open to all municipal corporations within the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, who would be able to utilize any of the contracts competitively bid and awarded by the LIPC.

A municipality can opt in to or out of any cooperative bid request.

The LIPC’s first bid request was recently issued for multipurpose office paper. Six vendors responded to the bid last week and the figures are being tabulated. Municipalities that join the LIPC will be allowed to purchase off the paper contract and any other contracts that the LIPC enters into going forward.

“I am encouraged by support shown thus far and have confidence that the efforts of this group will help eliminate the waste of taxpayer dollars,” said Mangano. “Together, we are stronger.”