Specialist, Purchasing

Purchasing Specialist

The Purchasing Specialist is primarily responsible for facilitating purchases on behalf of Tulsa City-County Health Department (TCCHD) programs.

Essential Job Functions :

• Reviews, approves, and places orders for requisitioned purchases; ensures compliance with State, County and TCCHD purchasing policies.
• Confers with vendors, sales representatives, and suppliers regarding availability of supplies and equipment, delivery times, billing prices, shipping charges, or special problems related to the purchase.
• Follows up on backorders, supplies not received, incorrect supplies received, and over and under charges; and tracks supplies received but unable to locate.
• Reviews catalogs, trade publications, and purchasing manuals in order to determine the most favorable sources of supply and quality for purchased materials.
• Appraises relative quality of the items or services to be purchased to ensure compliance with purchase specifications.
• Provides advice to requestors and approvers regarding best practices and available vendors for goods and services procurement specific to their program.
• Maintains list of active suppliers and maintains purchasing files and reports.
• Responsible for coordinating office supply orders for TCCHD programs.
• Working knowledge of inventory management systems.
• Understands appropriate sole-source designations for vendors within government procurement processes.
• Participates in crafting bid specifications, preparation and distribution of bid invitations and evaluation of bids prior to agency award recommendations.
• Completes required training in support of duties and responsibilities of this position.
• Other duties as assigned including those required to fulfill activities in support of public health emergency operations.

Typical Qualifications :

Education : Associate's degree in business, accounting, or materials management preferred. Experience : Three or more years of purchasing experience is required. Knowledge and Skills : Knowledge of sources of supplies, markets, and price trends. Ability and willingness to establish and maintain effective working relationships with vendors, other employees and the general public. Ability and willingness to follow established policies and procedures. Ability to communicate effectively while serving multiple programs. Ability to apply effective reasoning techniques when interpreting purchasing statues. Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists. Good interpersonal, customer service, multi-task, and satisfaction-oriented skills. Composition of clear, concise correspondence and documents. Working knowledge of MS Word and Excel. Understanding of financial accounting systems, billing systems, reporting tools, and related procedures and software used for recording and reporting business transactions. Licenses / Certifications : None required. CPO preferred (OK State Certified Procurement Officer). INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL WORKING RELATIONSHIPS : Frequent internal contact with personnel at all levels in the purchase of goods and services. Frequent external contact with vendors regarding purchases and orders. PHYSICAL EFFORT : Must be able to lift materials, boxes of records and equipment weighing up to 25-30 pounds. Some stooping, bending and squatting may be required when retrieving files. Sitting for periods of time, up to 3 hours. Repetitive hand motions associated with using a computer, keyboard, mouse and telephone. SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITY / ACCOUNTABILITY : Direct Supervision None. Indirect Supervision None. Budget / Money / Material No direct accountability. Recommends the purchase of multi-million dollars in goods and services per year. Reports to Senior Accountant, Supervisor. WORKING CONDITIONS : No unusual working conditions. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS : Must maintain THD record confidentiality according to HIPAA regulations. FLSA Status : Exempt.