Agreements with public universities and colleges

Procurement Bulletin 2018-8

May 8th, 2018

In Procurement Bulletin 2015-11, we announced that the standard department process for agreements with public universities and colleges should be done through MOUs and entered into SAP as Fund Commitments (FCs).

Since then, several issues with this approach have been identified by ESDC Legal, CFOB and clients. Clients responsible for putting these agreements in place have expressed concerns and confusion about the complex legal and policy framework including the lack of standard terms and conditions for these agreements.

Therefore, effective immediately, agreements with public universities and colleges must be completed through a procurement contract and clients must enter a preq in SAP for CFOB Procurement to put a contract in place. This applies only if there are payments from ESDC to the university or college and if there are goods and services being delivered for direct ESDC use (i.e. procurement contracts are not to be used for transfer payment type of work).

If there are no payments from ESDC, i.e. the agreement is valued at $0, we recommend that clients involve departmental advisors in the areas of financial management, financial policy and legal services early in the process to determine the best course of action. In these cases, do not enter a preq in SAP. You will need to use a MOU or other type of agreement, depending on the circumstances to be determined with departmental advisors. If you are unsure on where to obtain this advice, please contact your FMA. Please note that any payment of tuition should not be entered as a preq; managers must respect the departmental Guidelines for Reimbursement of Tuition and Education Leave (PDF version, 1 MB).

For procurement contracts above $25,000, you will be required to provide a sole source justification with your preq. In cases where the agreement is valued above $100,000, CFOB Procurement will send a requisition to PSPC to put the contract in place on our behalf.

Please note that Procurement Bulletin 2015-11 will be annotated with regard to this change.

If you have any questions, please write to the NC-PURCHASING_PORTAL-PORTAIL_D'ACHATS-GD.

Distribution:

  1. Administrative Professionals Network
  2. Procurement Business Reference Network