Brazos County commission approves the purchasing office director's request for more authority

This podcast contains comments from the September 30, 2025 Brazos County commission meeting.A unanimous Brazos County commission gives the purchasing office additional authority not requiring prior commission approval.Among other things, the office can approve contracts of up to $100,000 dollars. That was the subject of comments by two commissioners at their last business meeting on September 30th.Two commissioners believed the additional authority was the result of new state laws. WTAW News confirmed with county officials that there are no new state laws and that current state codes gave the elected body the option of giving the additional authority.Fred Brown said "I know there's nothing we can do about it. It gives me pause, the entire thing. This is caused by the legislature. But when you talk about $100,000 dollars that's a lot of flexibility for staff that doesn't have to come to us. Again, there's nothing we can do about it because the legislature put this in place."Wanda Watson then said "I would believe that the purchasing department, just knowing how good our purchasing department is, there will be some discussion with that. It won't just be blindly decisions being made. We will have some idea of what is coming forward. It's just that we are making sure we adhere with what the new state laws are."But WTAW News confirmed with county officials that what the commission approved was a request made by the purchasing director based on one section of the Texas government code that was passed in 1987 and another section that was amended in 2011. Both sections gives the county commission the option of giving additional authority to the purchasing director.Click HERE to read and download Texas government code section 262, which includes sections 262.001 and 262.011 that were cited in the purchasing director's request to county commissioners for signature authority that was approved at the September 30, 2025 commission meeting.The commission's vote gives the purchasing office to approve the following:Contracts under $100,000 including informal quotes, service contracts and change orders/amendmentsAssignments and extensions for contracts equal to or above $100,000Credit applicationsAuthorizations for use of contingency for all contractsBudgeted purchases in any amount on a state or cooperative contractThe request from purchasing director Charles Wendt said "Several routine procedures including assignment (vendor name change) and extensions or renewals of contracts, would reduce the number of agenda items if Court approval is not required, and would greatly reduce the agenda item entry, processing and lag time required."Wendt also said "The current process for approval of authorizations for use of contingency and credit applications requires the County Judge approval. Given that these are ministerial in nature, require valuable, limited time of the County Judge, and would facilitate communications and coordination with Purchasing, we would like the Court's permission to approve these documents in the future. This would expedite the processing of these often time critical steps."And Wendt said "The Court will maintain responsibility for contracts, amendments, and change orders with a value of $100,000 or more per the Local Government Code 262.023. Purchasing reserves the right to send any contract to Commissioners' Court in lieu of approval by Purchasing."