With over 120 acres of green space and a continuous effort to keep these areas growing beautifully, one of the ongoing needs for our parks and roadways is sod and sod installation to support this effort. Typically, these services are provided by our landscape vendors with pricing higher than buying sod directly from sod farms. In the past, the Town has accessed a Southeast Florida Governmental Cooperative Group (“COOP”) contract to obtain significant savings to the Town for the price of sod. That contract expired last fall and subsequently, the COOP issued another solicitation for sod and sod installation services.

In August 2016, the COOP, comprised of forty–five (45) agencies intended to leverage the buying power of multiple agencies for a cost savings, underwent a competitive procurement process and awarded a contract for the purchase of sod and sod installation services. After reviewing their Contract and its pricing terms, it is recommended that the Town access and “piggyback” this Contract as allowed under Section 7 of the Procurement Code as pricing is 25-56% lower for the direct purchase of sod than what any of the current Town landscaping vendors can provide including installation (see attached cost comparison).

Type of Sod	COOP Contract Price	Average Town Vendor price
St Augustine	$0.29	$0.56
Bermuda	$0.38	$0.63
Seashore Paspalum	$1.85	$1.97
* Unit of Measure = Price/Square foot including sod and installation

Approval of this agreement for future enhancements will provide the Town an alternative to current contract pricing with the ability to purchase sod directly through the COOP contract once funds are made available at a large cost savings to the Town.