Senate Bill No. 146
(By Senators Tomblin (Mr. President) and Sprouse
By Request of the Executive)
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[Introduced January 14, 2004; referred to the Committee on
Finance.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §5A-3-4 of the code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to vendor registration fees within
the division of purchasing for the maintenance and auditing of
contracts entered into by the state.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §5A-3-4 of the code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 3. PURCHASING DIVISION.
§5A-3-4. Rules and regulations of director.
(a) The director shall adopt and amend rules and regulations
to:
(1) Authorize a spending unit to purchase specified
commodities directly and prescribe the manner in which such
purchases shall be made;
(2) Authorize, in writing, a spending unit to purchase commodities in the open market for immediate delivery in
emergencies, define such emergencies and prescribe the manner in
which such purchases shall be made and reported to the director;
and for the purposes mentioned in subdivision (1) and this
subdivision (2), the head of any spending unit, or the financial
governing board of any institution, may, with the approval of the
director, make requisitions upon the auditor for a sum to be known
as an advance allowance account, in no case to exceed five percent
of the total of the appropriations for any such spending unit, and
the auditor shall draw his warrant upon the treasurer for such
accounts; and all such advance allowance accounts shall be
accounted for by the head of the spending unit or institution once
every thirty days or oftener if required by the state auditor or
director;
(3) Prescribe the manner in which commodities shall be
purchased, delivered, stored and distributed;
(4) Prescribe the time for making requisitions and estimates
of commodities, the future period which they are to cover, the form
in which they shall be submitted and the manner of their
authentication;
(5) Prescribe the manner of inspecting all deliveries of
commodities, and making chemical and physical tests of samples
submitted with bids and samples of deliveries to determine
compliance with specifications;
(6) Prescribe the amount of deposit or bond to be submitted
with a bid or contract and the amount of deposit or bond to be
given for the faithful performance of a contract;
(7) Prescribe a system whereby the director shall be required,
upon the payment by a vendor of an annual fee established by the
director, to give notice to such vendor of all bid solicitations
for commodities of the type with respect to which such vendor
specified notice was to be given, but no such fee shall exceed the
cost of giving the notice to such vendor, nor shall such fee exceed
the sum of forty-five two hundred dollars per fiscal year, nor
shall such fee be charged to persons seeking only reimbursement
from a spending unit. A vendor may apply to the director, for a
waiver, to reduce the fee to one hundred dollars per fiscal year if
they do less than ten thousand dollars in transactions with the
state in a fiscal year. It shall be the sole discretion of the
director whether to grant the waiver. Lessors of real property
shall be considered vendors for purposes of this article, subject
to the vendor fee. Services covered by the fee shall include, but
are not limited to, contract management and auditing agencies and
vendors for compliance with purchasing rules and regulations.
After fiscal year two thousand ten, the amount of the vendor fee
can be set by legislative rule.
(8) Prescribe that each state contract entered into by the
purchasing division shall contain provisions for liquidated damages, remedies, and/or provisions for the determination of the
amount or amounts which the vendor shall owe as damages, in the
event of default under such contract by such vendor; and
(9) Provide for such other matters as may be necessary to give
effect to the foregoing rules and regulations and the provisions of
this article.
(b) The director shall also adopt and amend rules and
regulations to prescribe qualifications to be met by any person
who, on and after the effective date of this section, is to be
employed in the purchasing division as a state buyer. Such rules
and regulations shall provide that no person shall be so employed
as a state buyer unless such person at the time of employment
either is: (1) A graduate of an accredited college or university;
or (2) has at least four years' experience in purchasing for any
unit of government or for any business, commercial or industrial
enterprise. Those persons now serving as state buyers shall remain
subject to the provisions of article six, chapter twenty-nine of
this code, and those persons employed as state buyers on and after
the effective date of this section shall be subject to the
provisions of said article six.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to increase the vendor
registration fee from $45 to $200 per fiscal year with a limited
waiver provided.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.