Procurement Policies and Procedures
Dollar Limitations
Background
On May 14, 2019, the South Carolina legislature changed the state law on procurement limitations for state agencies. Clemson believes this change in the law will greatly simplify most purchases made by the University, by saving time and eliminating the frequency of the need for formal bids and solicitations.
Policy
The following general guidelines apply to purchases based on dollar limitations. If there are State and/or Agency contracts, these contracts are to be utilized.
- Purchases less than $10,000 – no competition (quote) is required, prices must be fair and reasonable. Purchases must be distributed equally among qualified suppliers.
- Purchases from $10,000 - $25,000 – require a total of three (3) formal written quotes. Quoted products are to be identical. All quotes must be attached to the Requisition in buyWays.
Procurement will be responsible to verify legitimacy. Quotes may consist of letterhead, email and/or web site pricing. Absent the adequate quotes, products will require a formal solicitation by Procurement and Business Services. - Purchases $25,000 and greater - will be bid out by Procurement and Business Services unless the product is on the state or agency contract, or there is an exemption number that applies to the purchase and/or it is a Sole Source procurement.
- COTS Purchases $25,000 - $100,000 - Commercially Available off the Shelf (COTS) products are defined as supplies other than printing or information technology/resources that is available in the commercial marketplace and are sold to the state without modification. COTS do not include printing and information technology/resources, products customarily sold in bulk, agricultural products and petroleum. COTS purchases require three (3) formal written quotes and will be subject to review and approval by Procurement.
- Purchases $100,000 up to $3,000,000 Procurement and Business Services will create and manage solicitations.
- Purchases over $3,000,000 - shall be sent to the State Procurement Office in compliance with the code using SCIES requisition process.
- Sole Source Procurement – $50,000 and above requires a written Sole Source Justification and public notification for a period of 5 - 10 business days, less than $50,000 requires a written Sole Source Justification. Procurement and Business Services will evaluate all sole source requisitions. For more information reference: https://www.clemson.edu/procurement/faculty-staff/solesource.html
There is no change to P-Card limits or policies related to the code changes in dollar limitation update on 9/3/2019.