Business & Finance / Purchasing (2024)

The Waxahachie Independent School District's Business Office works together with schools, departments, vendors, and stakeholders to support the core beliefs of public service by acquiring necessary resources through prudent purchasing practices and excellent customer service. The Business Office acquires goods and services, manages the procurement process, provides procurement guidance, and supports the District’s mission to be a premier urban school district, educating all students for success to be career and college ready. The Business Office strives to control costs while ensuring the uninterrupted flow of products and services necessary to effectively and efficiently operate the district.

School districts in the State of Texas are governed by the state's competitive bid law; therefore, the majority of our purchasing is done via competitive sealed bids or proposals. The purpose and intent of this competitive process are to help public schools obtain the best products at the lowest practical prices in the best interest of the taxpayers by stimulating competition. Waxahachie ISD is committed to fair and equal competition among all vendors and does not allow favoritism to be shown to any vendor.

The Waxahachie ISD business office requests sealed proposals from vendors at various times through the fiscal year to compile approved vendor lists. These opportunities are for specific categories and are advertised at different points in the year. The purpose of these vendor lists is to comply with Texas law that requires governmental entities to seek sealed competitive bids, by category, when total expenditures in the fiscal year exceed $50,000. These locally developed approved vendor listings are used, in combination with vendors who are approved by purchasing cooperatives, we are members of, to give our employees vendors to seek quotes from when making purchases.

In addition, to bid requests to formulate vendor lists, the district also seeks competitive bids from vendors as various projects arise during the year. The projects are not always planned expenditures ahead of time, depending on the time of year and needs of the District.

Regardless of the reason for the solicitation from vendors, all bid opportunities will be published in the Waxahachie Daily Light, Waxahachie Sun, and posted on this website as they are available.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature adopted House Bill 1295 which added§2252.908 to the Government Code. The law states that a governmental entity or state agency may not enter into certain contracts with a business entity unless the business entity submits a disclosure of interested parties to the government entity or state agency at the time the business entity submits a signed contract to the government or state agency. These new provisions took effect on January 1, 2016.

Since the Board of Trustees will adopt approved vendor lists for the advertised categories, vendors must comply with this mandate prior to doing business with Waxahachie Independent School District.

To have an acceptable response to a bid solicitation, successful vendors will submit specifications sheets and complete the IRS Form W-9, or have a completed Form W-9 on file with the District. Other required forms include aConflict of Interest Questionnaireand aFelony Conviction Affidavit. Completion of these forms by themselves does not add a vendor to the approved vendor lists. These forms must be received, in combination with other requested information, as part of the vendor submission to a current bid solicitation to be valid.

Vendors may visit the District website during each of the following months to access the required packet of paperwork and return by the date listed in the bid/proposal documents.

January

• Transportation-Related Supplies, Equipment & Services

May

• School, Office, General Supplies & Equipment
• Library Supplies & Equipment
• Athletic Supplies & Equipment
• Nursing Supplies & Equipment
• Printing Supplies & Services

September

• Maintenance Related Supplies, Equipment, and Services

Throughout the year, there may be other bid proposal opportunities that will be posted to our website as they arise. Vendors may check our website monthly to see these opportunities.