Co. Purchasing Agent Not Reappointed, Bids Farewell

CREST HAVEN – Cape May County Purchasing Agent Kim Allen gave her final report at the Aug. 12 freeholders’ caucus meeting. Her final day with the county is Aug. 26; she is on vacation until then. She was not reappointed and said she was notified by mail.
Allen joined the county eight years ago after having spent 32 years with IBM. She headed an eight-person department, and earned $72,393 annually, according to the county payroll.
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton told the Herald discussions are ongoing for Allen’s replacement. “No doubt we have been in the forefront of innovative policy for many years. Many of the team we created have been major contributors over the years to the changes,” he wrote in an email. He further stated that he is “Making sure the board is updated routinely on major issues. Not like the old days.”
Allen read the following statement before departing the meeting:
“Change is opportunity and when I started with the county eight years ago after leaving the private sector with 32 years I faced the county Purchasing Department as a new challenge.
“I put in place the county on-line auction site in 2006, and we were the first in the state. To date, we have sold $800,000 of surplus assets and property.
“In 2007, I implemented the first county procurement portal that streamlined our RFB/RFP (request for bids, request for proposals) process and cost avoided the paper and mailing costs that was all manual effort. This not only expanded our vendor base that allowed for greater competition. Today, in the state, every county is on a procurement portal.
“As a result of the competitive contracting best practices that was introduced by Comptroller Matthew Boxer we adopted and have all our professional services contracts now competitively contracted in excess of $17,500. Today, we have over 200 county contracts that need to be bid or competitively contracted, thanks to “pay-to-play” law and we closely track them quarterly and send out to departments annually their contracts that are coming up for renewal in that calendar year.
“Contracts are now compliant before they are awarded and the department tracks these monthly for non-compliance documents.”
“Three years ago, when Gov. Christie signed into law the national cooperative contracts, Cape May County was the first to contract with many of the established national contracts and we had a county cooperative member meeting with many national cooperative vendors attending and displaying their products. As a result of using national cooperatives, we have selected a national contract vs. having to bid it out and also have reaped hundreds of thousands of cost savings and rebates.
“The P-card that we have long before I came on is a tremendous time-saving tool for this county and now that is on state contract hopefully other counties will also recognize the value of this credit card for their purchases.
“Change is good, the purchasing department has four new people in the department over this past year and with new responsibilities, their education and background they too will bring fresh and new processes to the department.”
Asked if she knew why she was not reappointed, Allen replied, “I guess I didn’t sell enough tickets,” an allusion to outside political activity. The next day she wrote, “After giving it some thought after the last freeholder meeting, it was best that I didn’t sell the most tickets.”