1. Dallas Area Rapid Transit Business Opportunity Forum
Procurement and Corporate Card Overview
Adam Nicholas
Assistant Vice President, Procurement
April 17, 2018

2. Why do we need Procurement?
How come it takes so long?
I know who I want. Why do I need bids?
What do you expect? It’s low bid.
Do we have to award to the low bidder?
We can lowball the contract and earn it back with claims!
I’ll bet you folks in procurement get really cool gifts!

3. Public Procurement Objectives
Ensure public confidence
Ensure fair and equitable treatment
Foster effective full and open competition
Provide increased savings
Maximize purchasing power
Satisfy agency requirements
Courtesy, impartiality, and integrity
Strive for efficiency and effectiveness

4. Procurement Responsibilities
Procurement means buying, renting, leasing or otherwise acquiring any property, services, or construction
Authority delegated by Executive Director and approved by Board:
Award contracts
Modify or change contracts
Terminate contracts
Some exemptions provided

5. Procurement Authority
DPR 2-101(2) – No contract, modification, change order, or commitment shall be made unless it is…
In writing
Executed by a representative of the authority acting within the scope of his actual authority
Authority delegated by warrant to Executive Director and to DART Contracting Officers
Discuss difference between budget and contracting authority. DART executives have budget authority… they can sign a requisition but they cannot award a contract.

6. Annual Spend (FY2017) 140 contracts awarded - $110 million
256 blanket purchase orders - $7.8 million
3,389 purchase orders - $ 13.7 million
Credit card transactions - $6.2 million
411 credit card users
423 active contracts - $1.25 Billion
36% of Spend to DMWBE - $59,273,329

7. Corporate Card at a Glance
FY16 ~398 Active Card Holders/~100 Approvers FY17 413/106
2016 Annual Spend ~6.2M, 2017 $6.16M
The Corporate Card Program supplements DART’s procurement process and facilitates payment for business travel.
It authorizes approved DART employees to make purchases so that they may address their department’s needs in a timely manner.
The Corporate Card Program establishes purchasing limits for all cardholders.
The Corporate Card is to be used for authorized DART purchases only.
Fraudulent or unauthorized card use may result in temporary or permanent cancellation of the cardholder’s privileges and disciplinary actions up to and including termination and legal action.
Reasonable attempts should be made to buy from vendors that provide discounts and special prices to DART.
The merchant at the point of sale enforces purchasing limits. Purchasing limits include card limits and merchant types from whom purchases can be made.
Cardholders are responsible for immediately reporting any fraudulent use or misapplication of the Corporate Card to the Corporate Card Administrator.

8. Pre-Set Limits
Single Purchase Limit: The limit established for each account that no single transaction/purchase may exceed.  
Spending Limit Per Cycle: The budgetary spending limit imposed by the Approving Official on cumulative Cardholder purchases in a given billing cycle.  
Merchant Category Code(s): Codes established on the account which define the type of merchant from which a Cardholder may purchase certain types of goods and/or services.
A "single purchase" includes all items purchased in a single transaction.
The total cumulative dollar value of Cardholder purchases for any billing cycle shall not exceed this limit.
Corporate Card presented to a merchant with a blocked MCC will be rejected for that purchase.

9. Split Purchases DART Corporate Credit Card Manual
Purchases shall not exceed the single purchase limit (or other pre- approved limit). A single purchase may include multiple items and still be within the single purchase limit.
Purchases shall not be split to stay within the single purchase limit.
Cardholders are required to know the authorized limits of their card. An authorized exception to this provision would be in cases where extended business travel might result in a hotel bill in excess of the single purchase limit.
If the dollar amount of a purchase will exceed the single purchase limit, a Procurement Requisition (PR) shall be used instead of the DART Corporate Card.

10. Split Purchases Cont.
Card holder (CH) can not break down requirements aggregating more than the micro-purchase threshold into several purchases that are less than the applicable threshold merely to avoid any requirement that applies to purchases exceeding the micro-purchase threshold.
Separating a requirement that exceeds a CH’s single purchase limit or threshold into two or more buys as a means of getting around the CH’s purchase limit.
DART CHs shall not fragment/split purchases that exceed the CH’s limit or threshold, as means to use the purchase card. To do so is a violation of DART’s Corporate Card policy and Procurement law.

11. Key Take Aways Do not split purchases. If in doubt – call Procurement
Do not purchase the following items without prior approval
Stock Items – Materials Management
IT Parts and Equipment – Information Technology
Promotional Items – Marketing
Furniture – Facility Services
Do not purchase items which are currently on contract or a BPO
DART’s Procurement Department has procedures in place to quickly fulfill emergency/urgent requests.

12. Questions?