The El Paso City Council held a work session on August 18, 2025, from 9:35 AM to 3:43 PM (with an executive session from 10:39 AM to 3:41 PM) to review the third and final session on the Procurement Sourcing Policy and Process, focusing on contract administration and vendor outreach. No public comments were heard. The meeting included detailed presentations and councilmember discussion on performance evaluations, change orders, supplier outreach, and procurement timelines.
Thank you. May I would you like to convene the work session? Do we need a call for the vote on closing this one? Oh, yes. All in favor to adjourn the special meeting? Hi. Anyone opposed? And the special mass transit meeting is adjourned at 9 34 a.m. Would you like to complete the work session, sir? Please. Thank you. Good morning. This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, August 18th, 2025. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in council chambers along with representative Acevedo, Representative Madonado Rocha, Representative Oriatrejo, Representative Nino, alternate Mayor Pro Tempiero, Representative Limon, and Representative Canales. It is 9 35 a.m. Mayor, we have a quorum. Okay. Good morning. Item number one is presentation and discussion on the overview of the procurement sourcing policy and procurement process. This is session three, contract administration and vendor outreach. Good morning. Good morning, Claudia Garcia with Purchasing and Strategic Sourcing Department. So I'm sadly gonna inform you that this is our last series of session. Yes, so um if I take thank you. So far you have been into prior sessions. This is our last one. Uh we have completed purchasing functions, procurement and strategic sourcing policy overview. We also went over a procurement process overview, and today we're just going over contract administration and vendor uh outreach. So we're gonna jump uh to contract administration and why this is important. Uh, because it ensures project success. Also, it minimizes disputes as uh when proactively done, uh we can communicate with uh suppliers to help prevent misunderstandings if something is not completely clear in the contract, so we can get ahead of that. It is also uh the intent of contract administration to manage uh risks, improve compliance, and uh facilitate uh communication. So we are showing you this as a cycle, right? But I'm gonna be presenting in a more linear way. Uh but in essence, these are some of the main functions of contract administration. Record keeping, contract compliance, performance evaluation, conflict resolution through the life of a contract. And if you have questions, just yeah, I was gonna say council members, if you have questions, just let me know. We'll we'll let you clause it. Thank you. So for the city of El Paso, the user department, it is a contract administrator. So each department it is going to uh select who's gonna be the best candidate to administer uh a contract. Some of the key responsibilities for a contract administrator, it is to keep records, also to ensure that a contract is in compliance from both parties, the city and the vendor uh site. They all they are also in charge of a conflict resolution with uh an exception here. Uh so in a day-to-day, the contract administrator will be in charge of uh trying to resolve any conflict that can uh come up during the life of the contract. But if uh if uh an issue persists, now the contract administrator will contact purchasing so we can go ahead and uh start the cure process. And if uh later in the presentation, I'm gonna be giving you a summary of the cure uh process. Because tentatively we can potentially terminate uh a contract for default, meaning that the contractor is not performing according to terms of the contract. Again, some more responsibilities of the contract administrator reviews that everything it is in compliance when it has to be with deliverables. They have to make sure they are paying uh in time and correctly to the contractor for the services uh that have been rendered. Documenting and monitoring, and also contract administrator, it is in charge of a close out of each contract that they have in charge.