Ulster County”™s executive is seeking to make good on a campaign promise to open up the $345 million annual “business” of county government to local small and medium-sized businesses.
“We are launching a campaign to ensure that the county buys local,” County Executive Mike Hein said to applause at a May 27 meeting of the Saugerties Chamber of Commerce at the Land and Sea Grill in Saugerties.
The “Doing Business With Ulster County” campaign will feature a new Web page (www.ulstercountyny.gov/purchasing) outlining opportunities and the processes involved in turning them into business. There is also a new brochure and outreach effort to area chamber of commerce members to alert them to the campaign.
Besides bid-dependent business, Ulster County also seeks to buy, from qualified local companies, products and professional services totaling less than $10,000, which are not required to go out to bid.
“My administration is committed to buying local whenever and wherever possible,” said Hein. “We need to grow and support business and jobs in Ulster County and I want to make it as easy as possible for our local businesses to compete for county contracts. This is about keeping tax dollars right here in Ulster County.”
There can be few guarantees on how much the county will actually spend locally, since a public bid is mandatory for most public spending, and bidders are not bound by geography. But Hein said that in the past county government had not coordinated outreach to local business. “The county talked the talk but never walked the walk,” Hein said. “We were really hard to do business with.”
He said whatever percentage of county spending stays local will prove fruitful due to the multiplier effect and over time that would grow as local businesses did more business with the county.
The Web site is a utilitarian page, with concise explanations of the procedure to participate in public bids and quick links to the offices and documents that are involved. Perhaps most useful of all is a roster of “current open projects” that lists the solicitation number and bid deadline for materials being sought by county government. The 32 items range from diet desserts to body armor. Meat, bread and milk make the list as does produce, bridge decking and transit buses.
Items on the list change frequently as the county assesses its needs, so Hein said businesses would be wise to get in the habit of checking the site regularly.
Hein said another way the county is working with local business is in seeking to promote tourism, with investment in the county tourism department coordinated with local industry leaders. He said the county has synergistic attractions in that agriculture provides great food for restaurants, vistas for tourists and inspiration for artists, and that combined with the beauty of the river and the mountains they can drive a lucrative tourism industry.
He said he is seeking to implement a policy that will eventually make it possible for visitors to come to “Car-free Ulster” by creating a mass-transit system that seamlessly takes city dwellers from the train to the country attractions without requiring the visitors to use a car. The audience applauded that idea, too.
He encouraged input from business people on ways to improve the “buy local” campaign and doing business with the county in general. “If you think a little out of the box it can make a big difference,” Hein said.
