How to Purchase from ESC Region 11 

• ESC Region 11 offers many services for our School Districts. Please search the multiple options on our website. Our services can be purchased using the annual contracts and/ or via the various consortiums.
  
  
• ESC Region 11 also offers products for purchase from our  Digital Cafe
  
  
• ESC Region 11 asks you to complete an ESC Region 11 Master Interlocal Agreement (MIA) if you will be purchasing our services or products via our consortiums. The MIA is available on our contracts module. This document allows you to make a legal purchase from us, as stated in Chapter 791 of the Texas Government Code, which authorizes local governments to contract with each other as per the terms:

MIA “Purpose: This Agreement shall: (1) Allow the Local Government to purchase products or services by purchase order, contract, agreement, or another appropriate legal method from ESC Region 11; and (2) Allow the Local Government to join ESC Region 11-sponsored purchasing cooperatives to purchase products or services from vendors which have been properly awarded contracts through statutorily authorized methods.

EPCNT 

Please review the About EPCNT  and Member Guide on the EPCNT website regarding how the EPCNT works.
While EPCNT is a Purchasing Cooperative, there is no agency that functions as the administrator for this cooperative. Instead, EPCNT is a "Contract Sharing" cooperative and not an administrative cooperative.
ESC Region 11 currently serves as the fiscal agent for this cooperative. We collect the annual fees (which are paused for the 2023-2024 year).

ESC Region 11 is a member of the Educational Purchasing Coop of North Texas (EPCNT) and we include the EPCNT agreement in most of our qualified bids. If your district is also an EPCNT member you can piggyback off of the ESC Region 11 bids in which the vendor agreed to the EPCNT clause. This is a great resource for qualified districts in Region 10 and Region 11 that join the EPCNT.

See the Awarded RFPs section for ESC Region 11 bid tabulations. Vendors that agreed to the EPCNT will be listed.

Purchasing Cooperatives: 

It is recommended that school districts join multiple Purchasing Cooperatives. Here is a list (not complete) of Purchasing Cooperatives.

Legal Authorization for using Purchasing Cooperatives:

School districts are authorized to use purchasing cooperatives by the Texas Education Code, and as a local government entity by the Texas Local Government Code. The Texas Education Code, Section 44.031, authorizes districts to enter into interlocal agreements with other government entities, including purchasing cooperatives that are managed by a government entity, for aggregate purchases of $50,000 or more, instead of using competitive bidding. An interlocal agreement is a contract between a local government such as a school district and another local government, a state agency, or another state, that can be used to procure goods or services.

The Texas Local Government Code, Section 271.102, authorizes a local government, including a school district, to participate in a cooperative purchasing program with a local government or cooperative organization of Texas or another state. By doing so, a local government entity automatically satisfies any requirement to seek competitive bidding.