Important Reminder – Sharing of Vendor Quotes During Small Purchase Procedures

To Management Council, VPs of Finance, and all eVA End Users
From Shared Services Center
Area Procurement
Reason Important Reminder – Sharing of Vendor Quotes During Small Purchase Procedures
Date October 14, 2025

As we all know, the procurement process is cumbersome and heavily regulated; therefore, maintaining compliance takes a bit of work. The SSC Procurement team would like to assist you by offering the following ‘Did You Know?’ tip and some resources to help you stay compliant during the quoting phase of a purchase.

Did You Know?:

Sharing one vendor’s quote with another vendor is in violation of the Commonwealth Procurement Law and Policy

As an example:

If you obtain a quote from Vendor A and share it with Vendor B you would be giving Vendor B an advantage, which is in violation of the Commonwealth Procurement Law. 

Please note: This includes redacting any portion of Vendor A’s quote or verbally giving Vendor B the information. 

We must all work together to protect the VCCS and ourselves as individual employees against any potential ethical and legal issues and we must preserve public trust in our procurement processes. 

To Learn More:

Please review the Core Small Purchases training materials in the Content Library: Core Small Purchases. (Note: Use your myVCCS/myCollege login credentials to access items housed in the SSC Content Library. These are the same credentials used to access your VCCS Gmail account or My Applications, where HR applications are located, and it ends with “@email.vccs.edu”.)

Governance Information for Reference:

Section 2.2-4300 of the Virginia Public Procurement Act (VPPA) establishes that all procurement activities must be conducted in a fair and impartial manner, with avoidance of any impropriety or appearance of impropriety. The law ensures that all qualified vendors have equal access to public business opportunities and that no offeror is arbitrarily or capriciously excluded.

Additionally, Section 3.18(d) of the Agency Procurement and Surplus Property Manual (APSPM) states, “Bids and proposal records shall be open to the public only after award.” Also, APSPM, 3.18 (h), specifically addresses Small Purchase Records stating, “Unsealed bids and unsealed proposal records shall be open to the inspection of any citizen, or any interested person, firm or corporation in accordance with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act only after award of the contract.”  In other words, the sharing active / open quotes prior to the issuance of a purchase order [award of a contract] is in violation of APSPM section 3.18. 

Please contact the SSC Customer Engagement at 877-340-5577 or help@ssc.vccs.edu if you have any questions.  

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