November 18, 2014 at 2:30 PM - Coop Committee Meeting

Discussion:  Interview committee may include: Paul Tedesco, David Ludwig, Jon Fisher, Priscilla Quintana, and Brenda Konkoleski. Board recommends that interviews be held in Ainsworth.

Discussion:  Interm Director Peterson gave a brief review of the meeting with ESM and the goals that were defined at that meeting. Notes/Goals are attached. It was noted that Brown & Saenger, normally Coop's largest supplier, does plan on implementing cxml order processing this year. Mr. Peterson shared with the committee that Pyramid School Products, normally Coop's second largest supplier, may not submit a bid this year due to the number of POs they received in the previous year. Peterson will be in contact with ESM regarding the possibility of aggregating orders to help with this type of issue. It was also noted that Commercial Art, Benz Microscope and Misko Sports will/may not submit bids this year due to the same issue.

Discussion:  The committee discussed the aggregation of orders for the Annual Buy. ESUCC/Coop will be in contact with ESM to confirm the possibility/process of aggregating orders. The final process will be communicated to all schools and vendors, and Bid Terms may be updated.

Discussion:  The committee discussed the possibility of marketing to other public entities (city's, etc.), per the Inter-Local Agreement Act. It was suggested to get the opinion of legal council, and make sure that all issues with schools are resolved before we move forward with adding other entities.

Discussion:  1. Reduce the number of PO's - encourage an aggregate PO - submit all teacher orders per school at same time Craig will send an email to the School Google Group indicating submission of PO’s by building or district is preferred by vendors and if a school wants to continue PO’s by teacher to please submit them all by building on the same day to the vendor. 2. Billing responsive to district needs with delivery dates in mind Craig has visited with vendors and a few schools on this topic. Vendors have stated they are still waiting on some school payments and Schools are ignoring the terms and conditions of paying within 45 days of delivery to a.) be able to pay in next fiscal year and/or b.) waiting to receive everything on a particular PO or from that vendor. 3. Continue to enhance the Coop System through effective statewide communication Craig has added each Admin in ESM for each school and ESU to join a Google group. ESUCC COOP will now be able to communicate changes or other updates directly to all participants. We encourage each ESU administrator to check with their schools that they have at least one contact that has been added to the Group. 4. Provide effective training throughout the state We are still piecing together with ESM what changes have taken place in order to know the exact training needed by all participants. Hence, a schedule for training has not been set as of today. 5. Develop a "user friendly" ESM environment The meeting with ESM on October 22nd addressed some of our concerns in this area. As a result there may be some subtle changes within ESM but I don’t foresee a substantial change to the user interface. One change mentioned during the meeting with ESM would have helped the Coop staff to assign catalogs but ESM has since said they are unable to turn this on. They will be discussing some of the recommended changes in their development meetings but there is no timeline for any changes as of yet. 6. Ensure on-time delivery From Craig’s work with vendors, the delivery issue seems to fall in one of three categories: 1. Vendors need aggregated orders vs individual teacher orders (issues: number of drops, availability of freight carriers for the time period); 2. Vendors want a longer window for acceptable delivery times beyond the two months (We have added the possibility of a vendor to extend pricing for a catalog for year round ordering); and 3. Vendors are concerned about late payments from the schools.