COSTARS is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s cooperative purchasing program and serves as a conduit through which registered and eligible local public procurement units (LPPUs) and state-affiliated entities (together “Members”) are able to leverage contracts established by DGS to cost-effectively and efficiently identify suppliers with whom to do business. The goals of this program are:

• To encourage, expand, and facilitate the opportunities for Members to achieve procurement savings and the best value through an interactive partnership with the Commonwealth.
• To provide increased opportunities for Suppliers of any size to participate and compete for Members’ business.
• To provide contracts with competitive pricing.

What are the benefits of being a COSTARS member?

Price—COSTARS suppliers give you their ceiling pricing on the items they are selling. This means they cannot charge more than what they advertise. However you don’t want to pay the advertised price. You are always allowed to negotiate this price lower. In a bidding process you pay what is sent to you, there are no negotiations allowed. This is a real problem, especially if you are using grant money that is limited.

Quality—If you are already building savings with COSTARS maybe you want to build on the quality as well. Again this is something that YOU control. While building a scope of work sounds like the solution, there are always interpretation problems, which doesn’t affect the contractor, it affects your job. With COSTARS you are in control throughout the entire process and can easily work with the contractor you know you are going to use, before you award the project.

Flexibility and Location—A broad selection of commodities and suppliers is offered to our more than 8,000 program members. More than 200 state contracts, with a pool of over 2,000 suppliers, are currently available for use by participants. This variety often gives local public agencies the option of keeping their procurement dollars in their local economy, thereby helping to maintain and generate jobs and advancing local economic development. While this seems arbitrary, having that money circulating in your community improves the financial stability of everyone, not only the consumer and contractor.

The Contractor—Have you ever been burned with a low cost contractor when going out to bid? Do you want to avoid that? Think its as easy as just changing the scope of work. Well as you know it’s not as simple as that. The bad contractors will always find a way in. But with COSTARS you can pick what contractor you want to use. Do you have a good contractor that you know does quality work? Ask them for the quote and negotiate them to get a great product for a great price.

In short COSTARS allows you to skip the costly bidding process and buy with confidence. Stay in control and shop local. COSTARS is a win-win.

Where does Pave Care fit into all of this?

Pave Care is a registered COSTARS provider under contract 29 and will help you get the best bang for your buck. We have crack sealing, seal coating, salting and plowing, and line painting. We also have a multitude of equipment with operator for rent on our COSTARS. We are local and reputable to Western Pennsylvania with more than 30 years experience. We have a long list of references and have processes that build a long lasting investment. With the money you could save, it’s just one more reason to work with us!