TRANSPARENCY

I want Long Beach to be a place where every purchase, every bid, and every dollar spent is easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to be proud of because transparency is a form of respect for the taxpayers. That starts with modernizing how we buy things and building transparency into the process from the very first step.

Chapter 34 of the Town Code — “Purchasing Rules” — was adopted under Ordinance 9806 on June 8, 1998, and hasn't been substantively rewritten since.  A modern purchasing process is one of the most concrete ways local government can earn trust.  The core of the plan is a four-tier matrix: the bigger the purchase, the more competition and documentation it requires, automatically — no case-by-case judgment calls.

Tier       Amount             Process

1           Up to $1K            Town Clerk authority

2          $1K - $9,999        2 written quotes

3          $10K - $50K         3 written quotes

4           $50K+                   Formal public bid/Indiana Supplier Portal

Adopt best practices and basic safeguards defined clearly enough that they can't be quietly set aside by default:

• Professional services (engineers, attorneys, auditors, IT consultants) selected on qualifications, not lowest price —evaluate on experience and approach, document the rationale in writing.

• Emergency purchases defined in advance, not decided in the moment: limited to situations that would endanger public health or safety, risk damage to Town property, or interrupt an essential service — approved by the Council President, with a written explanation to the full Council at its next meeting.

• An anti-splitting rule: purchases can't be broken into smaller pieces to circumvent a bidding threshold. Related purchases for the same project or ongoing need get added together when figuring out which tier applies.

• Conflict-of-interest disclosure filed in writing with the Clerk-Treasurer before any related vote, with recusal from the vote and the discussion — every time, not just when someone asks.

That's what modern, trustworthy purchasing looks like for Long Beach — not a bigger bureaucracy, just a clearer one, built for the town we're becoming.