Cooperative Contracting

Cooperative Purchasing involves sharing procurement contracts between governments or within a government. Through cooperative purchasing arrangements, the dollars spent (purchases) increases, and this increased spend helps to leverage the organization’s ability to obtain deeper discounts and achieve greater savings.

There are several types of Cooperative Purchasing:

True Cooperatives - Two or more organizations combine their requirements and solicit bids or offers for goods or services.

Piggybacking - One or more organizations represent their requirements and include an option for other organizations to "ride" or "bridge" the contract as awarded.

Third Party Aggregators - An organization brings together multiple organizations to represent their requirements and manage the resulting contract or contractor.

The DAS statutes allow for Cooperative Purchasing; however, unless DAS specifies a cooperative contract in the State Contracting Portal as a statewide contract, executive branch state agencies must seek written approval from DAS for any cooperative purchase. A complete justification as to your needs and why competitive bidding or using an existing state contract is unfeasible must be included in your written request for approval.  To learn more, view the Cooperative Purchasing Procedures (word document).

The DAS statutes also allow for the use of Federal Contracts.  Like Cooperative Purchasing, unless DAS specifies the use of a federal contract in the State Contracting Portal as a statewide contract, executive branch state agencies must seek written approval form DAS for use of any federal contract. To learn more, view the Procedures for the use of GSA and cooperative contracts.