Purchasing Specialist

About the role

Tulsa Health Department is actively seeking dedicated individuals passionate about making a positive impact on their community. Join us in improving the health and overall well-being of every resident in Tulsa County.

Responsibilities

• 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.

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