WHARTON ISD

PURCHASING PROCEDURES

            1. Purchase orders must be approved and signed by the Business Manager or Superintendent in advance of the purchase. Purchase orders will be mailed/faxed from the Education Support Center after final approval. Payment Authorization forms will not be accepted in place of a purchase order, without prior approval. Board policy states that the district will not be responsible for any purchase that is not on an approved purchase order.

            2. Books, materials accepted “on approval” must also have an approved purchase order.           

            3. If necessary to make repeated purchases from local vendors, purchase orders may be set up for a month at a time provided all invoices are kept and turned in. Purchase orders may be set up for the entire fiscal year for repeated monthly payments, such as copier lease payments.  

            4. If necessary to place an order on short notice, the Principal/Supervisor must first call the Business Manager or Superintendent for approval. The campus must then immediately manually type a purchase order or enter an electronic purchase requisition.

            5. If you must have a check for a budgeted item on short notice, please follow the procedures above. Reimbursements to the Activity and Agency accounts will not be made unless advance approval has been given by the Business Manager and/or Superintendent.

            6. Expenditures for fixed asset/inventory items (per item cost > $200) and for payment to employees must be made through the budget. You may reimburse the budget from your Activity or Agency accounts with prior approval.

            7. Purchase requisitions should include enough information to adequately describe the item(s) being purchased and the purpose. Teachers should include this information on the written requisition form under “Purpose of Requisition”. Secretaries should include this information in the “Special Instruction” screen when entering the requisition in the computer. Some requisitions may be self explanatory and this additional information may not be necessary. Use good judgment.

            8. Food orders such as reward dinners for students, luncheons for faculty meetings or other group meetings that are to be paid from organizational budgets must have prior approval from the Business Manager or Superintendent. Whenever possible, expenditures for food, flowers, gifts, etc. should be made from Activity or Agency accounts.

            9. The EDPro electronic system will not allow a purchase requisition to be entered if sufficient funds are not available in the budget account. Campus and ESC secretaries can access account balances in two ways. In the EDPro General Ledger system, each campus/department has a Saved Report. However, the Saved Report account balance shown does not allow for Open Requisitions you may have. (These are requisitions that have been entered into the system, but the purchase order has not yet printed.) The most accurate way to check a real time account balance is to go to EDPro Accounts Payable/Maintenance/Account Inquiry. Here you can enter the budget account code you want to check the balance on. Any Open Requisitions you have will be shown by the Remaining Balance.

10. If budgeted funds are not sufficient in the appropriate budget account, a budget amendment must be approved prior to entering the purchase requisition. All budget amendments must have approval from the Business Manager or Superintendent in advance of the purchase. Requests to transfer funds at the function level require approval of the Board of Trustees.

The following are local procedures to satisfy state purchasing law and Board policy in regards to purchases of personal property. Personal property generally includes everything subject to ownership that will not be consumed by use.

            11. All purchases that cost $1,000 or more shall require written or telephone price quotes from at least three vendors from the approved vendor list. These quotes must be sent to the Business Manager to be attached to the purchase order to the chosen vendor.  

12. All purchases that cost $10,000 or more shall require Board approval before a transaction may take place.

            13. No purchase of any item shall be made from any vendor not on the approved vendor list, without prior approval of the Business Manager or Superintendent.

8/17/2007