If there is one love-hate relationship that stands above the others in the world of the school district technology leader, many would state, without hesitation, that the district’s purchasing or procurement department drives them mad. Before continuing, let me clarify that this does not mean technology leaders always hate working with the individuals in the purchasing departments. Rather, it suggests that from a technology leader’s perspective, working with purchasing departments can be a difficult, time consuming and an extremely frustrating experience.

On the one hand, purchasing departments can provide many useful services. At their best, they can assist in acquiring desired goods and services at the lowest price with minimum effort. This, in turn, saves time, while also allowing districts to stretch their budget. An effective purchasing department can also help keep schools out of potential hot water — as well as prevent unexpected delays in acquiring goods and services — by ensuring that they follow appropriate state and district purchasing regulations. (For those reading this that are relatively inexperienced in public sector procurement, I cannot emphasize strongly enough how the failure to strictly follow appropriate purchasing regulations can lead to vendor protests that can literally destroy major projects.) Similarly, the purchasing department should help prevent technology leaders from giving unfair advantage to vendors with whom they have developed relationships over a period of time.

The problems associated with purchasing departments come to pass, I believe, when they overlook the fact that they are a support unit whose purpose is to assist clients. As a result, they become removed from the client issues and concerns and begin to make bad decisions that not only increase the cost to the school district, but eventually have a negative effect on students. One of the nastiest manifestations of the problems is when a purchasing department determines to bid for a district-wide contract without involving the appropriate support unit. Strange as it may seem, I know of a purchasing department that issued a request for bid (RFP) for thousands of computers without input from the technology division; and another that issued an RFP for a district-wide library book acquisition system without requesting input from the library department. Behavior such as this is not only insulting to the other departments, but demonstrates an attitude that is bound to hurt morale. Changing rules and procedures without notifying anyone in the district is another symptom of a purchasing department that has forgotten that they are there to serve. It is disheartening, to say the least, to spend a considerable amount of time working on a project, only to be told, “We don’t do it that way anymore.” A more severe version of this is when the rules change so frequently or are so convoluted that when requesting assistance from the department, you get a different answer depending on who you ask.

I focused on purchasing or procurement departments because they are so essential and critical to a successful technology program. While you may compare some of the examples to your experiences with a purchasing department, the broader issue, serving your clients in a responsible manner, cuts across most district support units. What you really need to ask yourself after reading this is whether or not others in your district are saying these things about the technology unit.