Jul 20, 2026 · 49 min · 10 segments
# Episode 37 - Frictionless Procurement: Using Cooperative Contracts To Get What You Want, When You Want it. Discover a simpler way to approach your purchasing process that saves time, creates…
Crosby GrindleGuestChris TubbsHostWell, there were so many things that you touched on there in that sort of that answer that I think are really important and worth reinforcing.
As you mentioned early on, we certainly have special districts and municipal agencies.
And as you note, likely have their own local internal purchasing processes and procedures.
But as you noted, do we all really know what those are so that we ensure that as we go through a purchasing process, that we're following those rules Because ultimately, that's one of the things that often gets the fire chief or fire agencies, you know, in hot water is tied to finances, right? It's always about these monies, which, you know, we're responsible for stewarding and being good fiduciary agents of finances.
So Crosby, for our listeners who may be unfamiliar with it, what is the cooperative procurement? Try and say that fast five times.
And my industry is full of really big, long, clunky words that aren't easy to say together.
And so cooperative procurement is, in basic terms, is two or more governments purchasing under the same contract.
Another way of saying this is you're using another government's procurement process and their resulting contract to satisfy your procurement requirements.
So think of this as mutual aid for your procurement process, right? And we're obviously very comfortable with mutual aid.
We trust other departments to come in and operate in our fire ground, even if they don't train exactly like we do or pack their hose lathes the exact same way.
We're basically trusting another government's procurement process and procurement team to have conducted their process correctly and create a contract that's designed to be used by other governments in satisfying their process.
and this is actually defined in the american bar association's model procurement code so this is well established and and it's it's conceptually about sharing uh sharing resources connecting buyers and sellers and creating efficiencies in fact all 50 states have some kind of statutory language that speaks to the ability to work with other governments And now most actually have a language that specifically call out the ability to use cooperative purchasing to satisfy the procurement process.
Well, there were so many things that you touched on there in that sort of that answer that I think are really important and worth reinforcing.
As you mentioned early on, we certainly have special districts and municipal agencies.
And as you note, likely have their own local internal purchasing processes and procedures.
But as you noted, do we all really know what those are so that we ensure that as we go through a purchasing process, that we're following those rules Because ultimately, that's one of the things that often gets the fire chief or fire agencies, you know, in hot water is tied to finances, right? It's always about these monies, which, you know, we're responsible for stewarding and being good fiduciary agents of finances.
So Crosby, for our listeners who may be unfamiliar with it, what is the cooperative procurement? Try and say that fast five times.
And my industry is full of really big, long, clunky words that aren't easy to say together.
And so cooperative procurement is, in basic terms, is two or more governments purchasing under the same contract.
Another way of saying this is you're using another government's procurement process and their resulting contract to satisfy your procurement requirements.
So think of this as mutual aid for your procurement process, right? And we're obviously very comfortable with mutual aid.
We trust other departments to come in and operate in our fire ground, even if they don't train exactly like we do or pack their hose lathes the exact same way.
We're basically trusting another government's procurement process and procurement team to have conducted their process correctly and create a contract that's designed to be used by other governments in satisfying their process.
and this is actually defined in the american bar association's model procurement code so this is well established and and it's it's conceptually about sharing uh sharing resources connecting buyers and sellers and creating efficiencies in fact all 50 states have some kind of statutory language that speaks to the ability to work with other governments And now most actually have a language that specifically call out the ability to use cooperative purchasing to satisfy the procurement process.
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