A frequent issue when protesting decisions by local government on bidding is whether the local codes meet the requirements of The South Carolina Consolidated Procurement Code (the State Code).  The State Code at § 11-35-50 requires all political subdivisions of the State to develop and adopt procurement laws.

            “All political subdivisions of the State shall adopt ordinances or procedures embodying sound principals of appropriately competitive procurement no later than July 1, 1983, S.C. Code Ann. § 11-35-50 (2007).”  The local codes must be “substantially similar” to the State Code.

            In a case decided October 23, 2008 entitled Edward D. Sloan v. Greenville County, et al., § 11-35-50 was construed.  The State Code contained a preference for competitive bids over competitive proposals and required a written reason if the State used competitive proposals rather than competitive bids.  The Greenville Code did not contain such a requirement.  Sloan challenged the Greenville Code.  The Court said the issues were moot because the contracts which were subject to the protest had been cancelled or fully performed by the time the Court considered the issue. 

The Court did, however, address the issue of whether the local code had to mirror the State Code in part by saying the State Code did not require local governments to adopt specific methods of procurement or the process by which to apply them, and that § 11-35-50 “clearly was intended to afford local governments flexibility to determine what is ‘appropriately competitive’ in light of the public business they must transact.”  However, this was not the holding of the case. 

            As noted above, the Court did not directly decide the issue but pointed out that the same issue was on its docket to be decided in Sloan v. Greenville Hospital System and in that case, the issue was more developed and ripe for decision.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Attack on Local Codes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.