By Phil Letendre, General Counsel, GovMVMT
The cooperative landscape has made significant changes since early agency adoption. With varying cooperative options, it has become clear that not all cooperative contracts are created equally and the difference often comes down to one simple, but critical thing: the true lead agency model.
The original legislative intent of cooperative purchasing was to create efficiencies and deliver greater value for public agencies. It was designed to reduce duplication of effort while maintaining the integrity and accountability that are pillars in public procurement. These are taxpayer dollars at use, after all. As the cooperative landscape has expanded, however, the structural approaches have expanded as well.
In a true lead agency structure, a real public agency that already purchases goods and services independently owns the solicitation, controls the evaluation, makes the award, and stands fully behind the contract. It appoints its evaluation committee, applies its own procurement policies, and directly oversees the process from issuance through award. The lead agency ensures that they oversee and manage the solicitation process as public servants, not as national administrators. The process mirrors how that agency would procure on its own, just at a much larger scale.
Why does this matter?
Transparency, accountability, and legitimate legal defensibility all flow from who actually holds the authority. When the same public organization that issues the solicitation also manages the process and executes the award, the lines are clear. There is no ambiguity about who made the decisions and for what purpose. It shifts the focus from quantity to quality. A true lead agency model is not about producing the most contracts — it’s about producing the right contracts. The emphasis is on rigorous competition, meaningful evaluation, strong vendor performance standards, and long-term public value.
When authority becomes blurred — particularly where contract administrators operate within the same procuring system and are funded through contract fees — perceived concerns may begin to arise. In certain structures, dual roles between procurement authority and program administration can create the appearance of overlapping incentives. Even when processes are conducted properly, does the structure itself create questions about independence, incentives, and whether volume or revenue considerations could influence decision-making? Perhaps.
A true lead agency model helps avoid those perceptions by keeping roles distinct, authority clear, and procurement decisions firmly grounded in public-sector accountability.
In cooperative purchasing, that clarity isn’t just a best practice — it’s what builds trust. Cooperative purchasing must continue to put government first.
