1. Legal Research, On-line Resources and GSA

2. OMES Website You can find the Central Purchasing Act and the Central Purchasing Rules on the Central Purchasing website

3. OMES Website You would open the Central Purchasing Act, hold down your “CTRL” button on your keyboard while typing the letter “f” and the following box would pop up on your screen:

4. OMES Website You might type the word “termination” in the “Find” box and then click “Next”

5. OMES Website It will bring up every instance of the word “termination”. In this case, though, it did not bring up the terms under which you can terminate the contract.

6. OMES Website So you might try the same process with the Central Purchasing Rules. In this case, if you go through the document, it locates a whole section on Contract Termination: Will be 260:115-9-9

7. OSCN.NET Not all purchasing laws are in those two documents. Another great resource is the Oklahoma State Courts Network (or as I like to call it “my fun space”).

8. OSCN.NET This can be a fun tool to use, but lets do serious research first. Click on the “Legal Research” tab first.

9. OSCN.NET A page comes up with Oklahoma Statutes, Session Laws, a link to the Administrative Rules (on the Secretary of State’s website), the Constitution and….(my favorite) Attorney General’s Opinions.

10. OSCN.NET Let’s start by researching a Statutes. Click on the “Oklahoma Statutes Citationized” link.

11. OSCN.NET A page comes with titles and links to all State Statutes. If you don’t know where you question resides, you can select the “Search” link at the top of the page.

12. OSCN.NET You know from your online classes there is a Chief Information Officer, so that might be a good search term if you were looking for IT laws.

13. OSCN.NET Up pops everywhere it sees that term in the Statutes. You will notice they mostly appear in Title 62, so that might be the best place to look for those statutes. It also shows “superseded” versions of the law.

14. OSCN.NET Sometimes, you may need the big three areas (Constitution, Statutes & AG’s Opinions) to answer one question. An example would be “How are the Courts exempt from the Central Purchasing Act?” Under the Constitution it states, Article 4 - Distribution of Powers Section Article 4 section 1 - Departments of government - Separation and distinction Cite as: O.S. §, __ __ § 1. Departments of government - Separation and distinction. The powers of the government of the State of Oklahoma shall be divided into three separate departments: The Legislative, Executive, and Judicial; and except as provided in this Constitution, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial departments of government shall be separate and distinct, and neither shall exercise the powers properly belonging to either of the others.

15. OSCN.NET But under the Central Purchasing Act it states: “Title 74. State Government Chapter 4 - Office of Management and Enterprise Services The Oklahoma Central Purchasing Act Section 85.2 – Definitions 34. "State agency" includes any office, officer, bureau, board, counsel, court, commission, institution, unit, division, body or house of the executive or judicial branches of the state government, whether elected or appointed, excluding only political subdivisions of the state;” Understand – this definition was worded by Legislature, who cannot exercise power over the Courts.

16. OSCN.NET Maybe this question has been asked before. Lets look at the AG’s Opinions: “Question Submitted by: The Honorable Jeff McMahan, State Auditor and Inspector 2003 OK AG 34 Decided: 08/04/2003 Oklahoma Attorney General Opinions Cite as: 2003 OK AG 34, __ __ ¶0 This office has received your request for an official Attorney General Opinion in which you ask, in effect, the following question: Are purchases made from the Court Fund governed by the Oklahoma Central Purchasing Act (74 O.S. 2001 & Supp.2002, §§ 85.1 - 85.44C), the county purchasing procedures (19 O.S. 2001 & Supp.2002, §§ 1500 -1507), or some other source?”74 O.S. 2001 & Supp.2002, §§ 85.119 O.S. 2001 & Supp.2002, §§ 1500

17. OSCN.NET Maybe this question has been asked before. Lets look at the AG’s Opinions: (cont.) Short part of the answer is: “¶11 The Legislature and the Oklahoma Supreme Court have crafted a separate and distinct set of guidelines to be followed when purchases are made from the Court Fund. See 20 O.S. Supp.2002, § 1304(A); Cook, 557 P.2d at 877; Hopper, 867 P.2d at 1257. This body of law is specific in nature and clearly includes the matter in controversy, i.e. what law governs purchases from the Court Fund. Southwestern Bell, 618 P.2d at 919. Furthermore, the Legislature and the Oklahoma Supreme Court established different rules and procedures for purchases than those found in the Act. See 20 O.S. 2001, § 1304(D); 20 O.S. 2001, ch. 18, app. 1. Therefore, 20 O.S. 2001, § 1304(D) and the Supreme Court Rules found at 20 O.S. 2001, ch. 18, app. 1, apply to purchases made from the Court Fund rather than the Act.”20 O.S. Supp.2002, § 1304557 P.2d at 877867 P.2d at 125720 O.S. 2001, § 130420 O.S. 2001, § 1304 You will notice this agrees with the “Distribution of Powers” in the Constitution.

18. OSCN.NET But there are more fun things you can do with this website. Say you were married in Oklahoma and forgot your anniversary date. Select “Court Dockets”.

19. OSCN.NET Select Oklahoma County from the drop down box and click on the “Search Dockets” link.

20. OSCN.NET Enter the County. His name is more unusual, so I entered his and hit “Go”

21. OSCN.NET Up pops the only case with his name in it. DRAT! I missed the date again. This is a handy little site to look up contractors (one of the class attendees looks up her babysitters).

22. OSCN.NET But wait..there’s more. If you go back to the “Legal Research” tab you will also see US Code (where the regulations reside for use of Federal funds). My favorite searchable area is one from the Cornell Legal Information Institute. Click on the link.

23. OSCN.NET You will get the “Legal Information Institute” main page with a titled list of the Code.

24. OSCN.NET If you don’t know the area, scroll down to see if something looks like it might be the area. When you get into the 40’s it looks familiar. Look at “Title 41-Public Contracts”

25. OSCN.NET Sure enough, there is the Federal Procurement Policy.

26. US Code Beta There is a new House of Representatives site that is user friendly. It can be found at: http://uscodebeta.house.gov/

27. Federal Grants Working with Federal Grants may have a whole different set of contracting rules. Your receiving dept must give you a copy of the full grant with the procurement provisions. You can try looking for it at the “Archived” section of the “Search” area in Grants.Gov, but they are limited.

28. General Research The Central Purchasing Awarded Solicitations area may have something: https://www.ok.gov/dcs/solicit/app/solicitationSearch.php?status=awarded The National Institute of Government Purchasing (NIGP) Library may have something: http://www.nigp.org/eweb/StartPage.aspx?Site=NIGP&webcode=reslibsearch You can contact the buyers at Central Purchasing and ask if they have something. You can contact a buyer from another agency that buys similar products/services. OR……….see next page What about other areas where I might find copies of specifications and solicitations?

29. General Research You can always try Google!

30. GSA The GSA home page (gsa.gov) has a lot of useful links including Regulations and an eLibrary. If you want to buy from GSA and you are not one of the two agencies with specific statutory expanded authority, you would select “GSA Advantage”.

31. GSA When you get to the Advantage page, you will select “State & Local”. Those are the general contracts the Federal Government allows all State and Local entities to use.

32. GSA There are Oklahoma Restrictions on the use of these contracts (see PIM 2000-2) and Federal Restrictions that will be stated for the use of each Purchasing Program. Additionally, these programs change with frequency, so be sure your contract is still open to States.

33. GSA The quickest way I would disprove a Sole Source, was to look at the GSA contracts. Especially if the division said the Federal Government required them to use a specific item. (That means it is probably on GSA and maybe from several vendors or at a lesser price.) Did you notice the two icons in the product boxes? They match two of the icons listed for use by State & Local entities.

34. GSA When you click the “See All” area of Contractors, you see: This one failed the “Sole Source” test.

35. Questions