The Town of Sundre is making an effort to support local businesses.
A preference in purchasing products and services locally has been adopted as a principle to be included as part of revising the town's purchasing policy.
ìIt's about supporting our local business community. It formalizes the philosophy of support to local business and it also provides a bit of a bidding cushion for local companies,î said Linda Wallace, the town's economic development officer.
She said if a local bid is higher than an outside company's bid on a product or service that is of equal quality, the local company would still be in favour. However, any grant for price variance would still have to be within the set budget.
ìIt could be a construction project, it could be Internet services, bookkeeping services, it could be nuts and bolts at the hardware store or parts for all our vehicles,î said Wallace.
ìWe need that good strong core of businesses to keep our community healthy, so anything that helps that is good for not only the business community but the community as a whole,î she added.
However, she said there are limits to purchasing locally. If the purchase is more than a certain amount, then it's governed by federal legislation and the town is not allowed to make the local purchase by federal law, she said.
This local preference in purchasing principle was approved by council to be included in revising the purchasing policy during the Dec. 17 meeting. Wallace said it would not come into formal effect until the purchasing policy is revised.
She said the town already generally does favour local purchasing, but feels it would be better demonstrated if it was formalized.
Council will consider whether the area covered will only include businesses in town, or also surrounding areas which are considered to be the town's ìtrading areaî, she said. The ìtrading areaî includes north to Caroline, east to the Harmattan/Eagle Hills Road, south to Twp. Rd. 310 and west to the Rocky Mountain foothills.
Dean Pickering, the town's chief administrative officer, said this principle would help local businesses because they wouldn't have to pay the extra cost for shipping.
ìThe goal of this was to show the business community that we are looking locally first before we look elsewhere,î said Pickering.
ìIt's like a human body. When the blood is flowing in the body it's all good but when there is leakage the body gets unhealthy, so it's essentially similar to that.î
He said the purchasing policy is going to be revised in the next few weeks.
