§ 20-a. Purchasing department or agency. Each city, except a city of the first class having a population of one million or more inhabitants, is hereby authorized and empowered to create and establish by ordinance of the common council or similar legislative body and to maintain a purchasing department or agency. Such department or agency shall consist of a purchasing agent, who shall be its head, and such assistants and with such salaries as the body which is by charter authorized to designate the number of employees and fix salaries, may from time to time authorize. The purchasing agent shall be appointed and removable at pleasure by the same official or body who or which by charter is now authorized to appoint the heads of city departments. The purchasing agent shall appoint and remove at pleasure such assistants and employees as may be authorized.
The purchasing department or agency shall purchase and be responsible for the proper receipt of all materials and supplies, including those on which bids are obtained after publication of notice pursuant to law unless the legislative body shall by ordinance otherwise provide, as well as those purchased without the requirement of competitive bidding, for such departments, boards, bureaus and offices of the city as shall be designated in the ordinance creating the department. Boards of contract and supply in second class cities and boards with similar powers in other cities and the common council or similar legislative body in cities which have no boards of contract and supply or bodies with similar powers, shall make rules and regulations not inconsistent with general laws or their charter, which shall prescribe the procedure, conditions, methods and practices that shall prevail in regard to all purchases of materials and supplies by the purchasing department or agency, and all departments, boards, bureaus and offices of the city for which supplies are purchased shall obey and comply with such rules and regulations. The purchasing department or agency may sell, under the direction of the board of contract and supply or any body having similar powers or the common council or similar legislative body in those cities which have no boards of contract and supply or body with similar powers, all property, real and personal, of the city not needed for public use and authorized to be sold. The purchasing department or agency shall have charge of such storerooms and warehouses of the city as the legislative body by ordinance may prescribe.
The purchasing agent and such other subordinates of the department as the common council or other legislative body may designate, shall within ten days after appointment execute bonds to be approved by the mayor, payable to such city in amounts to be prescribed by ordinance of the common council or similar legislative body contingent on the faithful performance of the duties of their offices and for a due accounting of all property that may come under their care, custody and control.
