Anchorage raised its no-bid approval limit to $50,000 from $30,000

Anchorage awarded 10 sole-source contracts in August, each without competitive bidding, and none required prior Assembly approval. They ran from $10,510 traffic counters to a $48,466 ESRI Velocity subscription, real-time mapping software. Ordinance 2025-37 raised the sole-source limit to $50,000 and requires only monthly reporting. The $30,000 limit dated to a 1988 Assembly memorandum. Eight of the 10 were under $30,000 and would not have needed approval before either.

Jamestown Advanced Products Corp received $36,824 for bear-resistant trash cans delivered Aug. 31. The Anchorage Daily News received $29,000 for advertising through Dec. 1, 2026.

The same ordinance raised the threshold for prior approval of competitively awarded contracts to $500,000 from $150,000. A companion report lists 14 August awards, topped by McKenna Brothers Paving's $450,000 concrete contract.

A 2022 audit found 22 unreported sole-source purchases between $10,000 and $30,000 totaling $384,944, plus seven purchases above $30,000 totaling $272,326 that were not reported to the Assembly. It found 11% of sampled justifications questionable. "The Purchasing Department needs to improve some controls over sole source purchases," Michael Chadwick wrote. A 2023 follow-up audit found purchases misclassified as sole source.