Tennessee has many general laws that govern purchasing by municipalities including the 1983 Municipal Purchasing Law, the Competitive Sealed Proposals provisions under T.C.A. 12-3-1207, the Contracts for Professional Services provisions under T.C.A. 12-3-1209 and 12-4-107, the Interlocal Cooperation Act, the Iran Divestment Act, etc.

The MTAS Purchasing Guide provides a general overview and citations for those general laws, and the accompanying MTAS Sample Purchasing Procedures contain best practices for implementing the state and federal regulations.

Additionally, the MTAS Purcgasing Policy Checkist is provided to ensure that the most important laws, processes and required authorizations are included in the purchasing policy.

This is a management evaluation that was prepared for the City of Brentwood to evaluate the Building/Planning and Engineering Departments and to evaluate the possible consolidation of these departments into a single development services department. The attachments also include organizational diagrams that are within the report but were utilized for presenting the organizational structure recommendations including a scenario to consolidate departmental functions. 

The City of Brentwood requested a management evaluation of the Planning & Codes and Engineering Departments that provided a recommendation to analyze existing processes and procedures for various types of plan review and permitting processes. Following the management evaluation, MTAS facilitated a series of work sessions with department staff to prepare detailed flow charts and diagrams for a variety of plan review, permitting, and inspection services provided by each department. During the preparation of the various flow charts, opportunities for streamlining and clarifying processes and procedures were identified and incorporated into the charts. The work sessions provided meaningful collaboration between departments to provide efficient and straightforward processes. The attached flow charts were prepared as part of the facilitation process.

The Town of Atoka requested technical assistance from MTAS for the preparation and adoption of its first capital improvement plan. Utilizing a guideline and templates prepared in 2022 by MTAS, Chuck Downham, MTAS Management Consultant, and Kay Stegall, MTAS Finance and Accounting Consultant, initiated the plan preparation process with the Town Administrator and staff. An initial PPT presentation was provided to Town staff outlining the importance of a capital improvement plan and the process that would be followed in preparing a draft plan. Since this was the Town’s first capital improvement plan, it was decided to utilize a five-year planning period initially with the understanding the planning period could be expanded in future years based on long-term capital project needs of the municipality.

Following the kick-off meeting, department heads were given a Capital Needs Worksheet prepared in Excel to identify and prioritize capital projects within their respective department. The Capital Needs Worksheet provided essential information about each capital project including a description, justification, estimated capital cost, estimated operational costs, and prioritization. MTAS consultants worked closely with department heads to ensure completeness of documentation for each capital project including the preparation of detailed project descriptions and sound justifications for every project.

Each department head was requested to identify 3 to 5 capital projects for inclusion in the capital improvement plan for their respective department and to also provide a funding strategy including possible funding source(s) for each project. Each department head submitted their prioritized capital needs worksheets to assemble into a master worksheet containing all capital improvement requests. The master worksheet is organized by department and capital projects are presented in the priority requested by each department head. Data and information from each capital needs worksheet was transposed to the summary worksheet including description, estimated capital expense, estimated operating expense, implementation year, and funding sources.

Some department heads identified debt financing as a possible funding source for certain capital projects involving significant project cost. In order to provide decision-makers with a better understanding of current debt obligations through the planning period and beyond, MTAS consultants prepared a debt summary statement as part of the capital improvement plan summary worksheet. A review of the Town’s adopted debt management policy was also performed and it was recommended the Town consider reevaluating and updating their debt management policy given future capital project needs as identified in the capital improvement plan.

A sample resolution was prepared for consideration by the governing body containing a capital improvement plan policy outlining the process for preparing, adopting, amending and implementing a capital improvement plan. MTAS staff also prepared a draft resolution to adopt the capital improvement plan with the summary worksheet serving as an exhibit to the resolution.

The City entered into a Wastewater Treatment Facilities Management Agreement with the County Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority for the operation of the City’s wastewater facilities on October 31, 2003. The City actually transferred its facilities to the Authority pursuant to the Agreement. The Authority now claims that it is only responsible for the operation and maintenance of the “main” lines, not the lateral lines, although the City understood that all assets and liabilities of the wastewater facility were transferred to the Authority. MTAS was asked to review the Agreement and statutes and determine if lateral lines are included in the property transferred to the Authority.