Answer: DEPO receives fees, which vary according to the product, from the winning Supplier(s) for the use of the DEPO platform that enables them to have improved visibility of demand, better ability to plan their production scheduling and reduced inventory and marketing costs, among other benefits. We expect the suppliers to fully disclose to the buyers their fee for the use of the DEPO platform. There are no other costs to the Supplier for the use of the DEPO platform and we allow the Suppliers to pay their fees in installments. (Close)

Answer: Several SLGs with premier credit ratings have told us that they find the financing/leasing component to be particularly compelling for the primary reason that their individual financing needs are often not sufficient (less than $15-$25 mil) to result in an "attractive" financing size for the municipal market. Typically, in the muni-market, larger financing packages attract more attention and more aggressive bidding than smaller financing packages. The SLGs also indicate that, as a result of the relatively small financing or leasing needs, they often will elect simply to tap other internal funding sources to fulfill their current funding needs and this sometimes presents a variety of problems. Pooled financing/leasing involves the "packaging" of a number of separate and distinct financings (related or unrelated to pooled purchases) into a single offering document in order to achieve a "more marketable" package. The approach provides the SLGs with improved flexibility in timing of financings and other economic efficiencies from standardized financing documentation and a single global bond opinion from a nationally recognized bond law firm. The obligations under the Composite Bond Offering are "several", but not "joint," meaning that each entity’s obligations remain separate and distinct. The package will be insured by a major bond insurer, rated and then bid competitively among the traditional SLG bond underwriters. (Close)

Answer: The contracts will be between the individual SLGs and the successful bidder(s). These bidders (Suppliers) must comply with all applicable government procurement laws for each entity receiving bids, including all requirement you specify, in the same fashion as they would without cooperative purchasing. Suppliers submit their bids through the DEPO system and DEPO makes all bids available, intact, to the SLGs at the specified time for the bid opening. Buyers, individually, award or reject the bids, as in the past and have the ability to award partial awards. By using the DEPO system, the SLGs benefit from bid pricing, based upon a much larger product volume than any individual entity, by itself, or even through a regional cooperative purchase, might obtain. The Suppliers’ bids must be "good" for the specified volume plus or minus a certain percentage to account for possible rejection of bids or for certain entities’ unforeseen withdrawal from the pool. All negotiations are conducted, as in the past, directly between Buyer and Supplier. DEPO does not buy products and resell them to the Buyers. For all products (and particularly for highly configurable products such as police cars, helicopters, fire trucks, transit vehicles, etc.), the Suppliers benefit from the use of the system derives from their (i) improved visibility of demand, (ii) better ability to plan their production scheduling, (iii) better ability to order their sub-components on a "just-in-time" basis (therefore, reducing inventory costs); and (iv) reduced marketing costs (i.e., so-called "cost of customer acquisition"). Savings for the Suppliers typically translate into more aggressive bidding and improved pricing for SLG buyers. (Close)

Answer: The current Motor Fuels pool represents the revised and streamlined second pooled transaction for DEPO with the first also being motor fuel. You asked for us to simplify the input process and enable you to use your existing IFBs. Others asked us to simplify our IFB Wizard for producing your own IFB online. These modifications have now been made.

The results of the first motor fuel pool were telltale. Those entities that built IFBs online or uploaded current IFBs were "taken very seriously" by the Suppliers and received extraordinary bids. Those that input no IFBs or used expired IFBs were treated as "curiosity seekers" and received competitive, but not extraordinary bids. In the initial motor fuel pool, which offered 450+ fuel products, 13 entities participated from across the country with 10 receiving bids for more than 72 million gallons of fuel (23 varieties, including various diesel fuels, gasoline, and even jet fuel). (Close)

Answer: In effect, the only item that is aggregated is the demand volume. Each SLG entity is allowed to maintain its own unique product specifications and its underlying documentation remains intact. DEPO’s platform serves as a data warehouse or repository for the storage of whatever documents you choose to employ and/or to store for future online access (only accessible to you, unless you grant viewing/editing rights to others in your organization and/or copying rights to your counterparts in other SLGs). As suppliers respond to the composite volume (i.e., bid response), they also must download and execute and/or acknowledge and accept the terms of the underlying documents of each entity for which they wish to submit a bid. In this respect, it is no different from the manner in which you currently conduct your solicitations, since the Suppliers would have the same requirements if they were to bid individually upon a number of different SLGs’ volume (except in that case, they would not have a central access point for capturing IFB info). By enabling each participating entity to store, retrieve, edit, and activate current and prior documentation online, DEPO provides a central access point for the Buyers to store their documents and Suppliers to bid upon a much larger volume than most have previously been accustomed to bidding upon. As a result of the Suppliers bidding upon the larger volume, meaningfully improved volume-discount pricing is expected to be the result.

In detail, DEPO (i) schedules a pool and invites SLG buyers to join the pool; (ii) SLGs securely register (one time) their profile information; (iii) select the product purchase pools they wish to join; (iv) input their IFB general info, select their product specifications and delivery requirements; (v) attach their new, or activate previously stored, underlying documents (including those that are informational, those that must be accepted and those that are executable); and (vi) submit their IFB. When the pool is closed, (vii) DEPO notifies the Suppliers which the SLGs have specifically identified, as well as those in our database, of the availability of pooled purchase IFB requirements. The Suppliers then (viii) view the Buyers’ general information and underlying documentation (which they are required to review and acknowledge, in order to use the system); and (ix) submit their pricing bids. DEPO then (xi) notifies the Buyers that bids are awaiting their review for evaluation, acceptance or rejection. Provision is made for Suppliers to submit questions and SLGs to respond to those questions during the bidding period. Typically pools will remain open for 30 days, the bidding period for 30 days and the award period will vary among Buyers, depending upon the product and customary practices. (Close)

Answer: A "Management" section now appears on the website. The Advisory Board, which consists of current City Managers, five former City Managers (two of whom were presidents of the ICMA), the former Lord Mayor of London, the former Executive Director of a major transit agency and the Executive Director of a statewide education association, among others, has more than 200 years of collective experience as senior SLG officials. Many of the Advisory Board members have had oversight responsibility for the Purchasing Departments that report to them. (Close)

Answer: DEPO utilizes a variety of formats for securing info regarding Suppliers (vendors). Of paramount importance is the information provided by each SLG through its IFB input process. After the Buyers identify their traditional and prospective Suppliers, DEPO notifies those Suppliers (and those furnished by other Buyers) of the pending pooled purchase. Thus, the primary recipients are those identified by each SLG. Secondly, for each product, DEPO also identifies Suppliers with national distribution and/or sales capabilities and arranges for them to register and participate – this ensures that there are bidders for the entire national pooled requirements. Third, DEPO uses industry coding information to identify other suppliers for the respective products.

DEPO receives fees which vary according to the product. The DEPO fees are paid only by the winning Supplier(s) for the use of the DEPO platform that enables these Suppliers to have improved visibility of demand, better ability to plan their production scheduling and reduced inventory and marketing costs, among other benefits. There are no other costs to the vendor for the use of the DEPO platform. Typical fees will range from 1.5%-2% for configurable products and for certain commodities (e.g., motor fuels) the fee will approximate 1/2 of $0.01 per gallon. (Close)

Answer: DEPO makes every effort to ensure that all qualified or SLG-specified Suppliers have access to the consolidating IFBs. DEPO is a completely neutral party and simply provides the consolidating or aggregating platform for use by the SLGs. Buyers provide a list of all Suppliers from which you wish to receive bids. Since other Buyers also provide their lists of Suppliers, when we add your traditional Suppliers to the database along with those provided by other Buyers and those we have otherwise identified through our various processes, the list should be fully comprehensive and inclusive of those Suppliers identified in most outreach programs. Our goal is twofold, to ensure that (i) there are national bidders; and (ii) the system accommodates the needs of all SLGs for regional bidder participation, and this process appears to accomplish the goal. (Close)

Answer: Our system not only allows you to input your IFB information, attach underlying documentation, view/edit current and stored IFBs or documents, grant rights to others for viewing, editing or copying, it also permits you to print your IFBs and other solicitation documents for your files. Likewise, the bid documents from the suppliers will be available beginning on the Bid Response date for your purposes of printing and evaluation. (Close)

Answer: Prior to the close of the bid solicitation period (the last day on which all Bids must be submitted by the Suppliers), you will have the opportunity to amend your IFB on our system. Any modifications will then be distributed to all Suppliers that received the original consolidated IFB. The Suppliers, in turn, can issue questions to you and you will be notified and can respond through the system with your response being made available to all Suppliers that received the original consolidated IFB. As a practical matter, it is recommended that no amendment be issued during the final week of bidding. (Close)

Answer: The initial scheduling of pools for products is in response to the requests from SLGs nationwide. Currently, it is anticipated that the next pools after motor fuels, will be for water treatment chemicals, back-up power generators, police cars, motorcycles and helicopters, non-police vehicles and transit products. The system is geared to accommodate numerous overlapping pools and notification will first be sent to registered SLGs and then to others that we have reason to believe will have an interest. Moreover, for many products, we intend to schedule "repeat pools" on a quarterly or periodic basis, even though we might expect the largest volume to occur in the initial pool for each product. It is our intent to schedule pools based upon the requests from SLGs. A schedule of future pools will soon be published and provision will be made for you to request specific pools. (Close)

Answer: We expect to publish the results of all pools and therefore, you will be able to compare the effect of volume-discount pricing versus the pricing you might receive on your individual solicitation. We cannot post progress volumes for the obvious reason that early in the scheduling of each product, the volume will be small or zero and could lead an SLG to reach erroneous conclusions regarding the progress of the pool. (Close)

Answer: Normally, 1-2 weeks prior to the scheduled commencement of a pooled transaction for a particular product, DEPO will notify those that are registered and/or have indicated their interest in participating in a cooperative purchase for specific products or those that we have reason to believe will have an interest in participating in a cooperative purchase of that product, those that other SLGs have suggested we notify and, finally, any others that fall into certain categories of SLGs that typically purchase the product.

From the commencement date of the pool, buyers will typically have 30 days during which they may join the pool by providing their requirements and specifications. Our one important provision, which may necessitate a change in your traditional processes, is that the Buyers/Suppliers accept the scheduled dates for joining and bidding upon a pool. Product specs may vary, but the dates must coincide with those the system specifies. Upon closing of the pool (for Buyer participation), the system automatically notifies all identified Suppliers of the availability of the pooled purchase requirements and the Buyers’ supporting documentation. The bidding period commences and the Suppliers will typically have 30 days to submit their bids. Upon closing of the bid period, Buyers will have full access to all submitted bids that were specifically submitted in response to their requirements. While the bidding period is open, Suppliers may submit queries and Buyers may respond through the system. (Close)

Answer: DEPO provides for any specifications you may require and if those specifications include Federal requirements (such as "Buy America"), those requirements remain intact for your portion of the pool. If Suppliers are able to comply with those requirements, their bid(s) will reflect the compliance. If they are unable to comply, they may submit their "Alternative Solution" for your evaluation and acceptance or rejection. (Close)

Answer: The science is evolving. For motor fuels, the bid pricing can be compared to prices that were received by others (at or near the same time frame) that may have chosen not to participate in the pooled purchase. For other products, it is likely that the comparison will be based upon budgeted costs that are generally derived from historical purchases. We believe savings for certain (non-commodity) products will likely approximate the upper end of the projected range (12%-20%), though based upon hypothetical tests and queries of a variety of Suppliers, we believe that for some products, the pricing advantage will be more. Savings obviously depend upon the product and the volume, but the good news is that it costs SLGs nothing for participating in a pool, even if they ultimately reject all bids. (Close)