Facing ongoing complaints about a sluggish procurement process, Bexar County Commissioners Court is embracing a new policy that gives county department heads authority to make purchases up to $100,000 without coming before the elected leaders for approval. <\/p>\n
The change was made possible during the last Texas legislative session, and the five-member Commissioners Court largely agreed Tuesday they should make the change \u2014 given the amount of frustration they\u2019ve heard surrounding slow-moving contracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully what we\u2019ll see in return is a more effective and efficient process of executing contracts and the procurement process, which has always been a prior criticism,\u201d Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said of the new policy. \u201d \u2026 We can move very fast as county government. We don\u2019t have to have that, \u2018Well, the county takes [forever].’\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier that morning, a voter registration vendor seeking to work with the county came before the court to air grievances about a contracting process he said was stringing his company along much longer than expected, and putting Bexar County out of step with other major Texas counties \u2014 albeit for a contract much larger than $100,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn June of 2025 we sent a budgetary quote \u2026 In July, we sent the initial contract for review and editing so we could negotiate,\u201d said Ben Martin, Chief Operating Officer at VR Systems Inc. \u201cIn September, the Commissioners\u2019 Court approved this activity, and then it took four months after we sent the contract before we received any response back from the county.\u201d<\/p>\n
In acknowledgement of the county\u2019s procurement problems, Bexar County traded out its purchasing agent<\/a> at the beginning of last year.<\/p>\n New purchasing agent Gregory Galloway, who previously oversaw contracts and procurement for the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG), took over the role at the beginning of 2025, and addressed the court Tuesday to explain other changes also coming down the pipeline.<\/p>\n Changing the contract threshold from $50,000 to $100,000 is just part of a large update to county purchasing policies<\/a>, he said, driven in part by the federal government\u2019s crackdown on\u00a0race-conscious scoring systems.<\/p>\n