The Knoxville City Council gave staff further direction regarding possible changes to the local bidder purchase policy.

Knoxville City Manager Harold Stewart said several options were discussed. One would call for a separate policy for the purchase of vehicles.
The current policy allows the council to purchase locally if the price is up to 10 percent over the lowest bid, not to exceed $500 dollars, for any purchase greater than $1,000 dollars.
The council recently approved a local bid for the purchase of a police vehicle that was over that threshold. It was then recommended by the city attorney that the policy be reviewed, if it was no longer going to be adequate for the council.
Stewart says they’ll gather information from other communities about their local bidder policies and will come up with a policy recommendation at a future city council meeting.