§ 20-a. Purchasing department or agency. Each city, except a city of
the first class having a population of one million or more inhabitants,
is hereby authorized and empowered to create and establish by ordinance
of the common council or similar legislative body and to maintain a
purchasing department or agency. Such department or agency shall
consist of a purchasing agent, who shall be its head, and such
assistants and with such salaries as the body which is by charter
authorized to designate the number of employees and fix salaries, may
from time to time authorize. The purchasing agent shall be appointed and
removable at pleasure by the same official or body who or which by
charter is now authorized to appoint the heads of city departments. The
purchasing agent shall appoint and remove at pleasure such assistants
and employees as may be authorized.

The purchasing department or agency shall purchase and be responsible
for the proper receipt of all materials and supplies, including those on
which bids are obtained after publication of notice pursuant to law
unless the legislative body shall by ordinance otherwise provide, as
well as those purchased without the requirement of competitive bidding,
for such departments, boards, bureaus and offices of the city as shall
be designated in the ordinance creating the department. Boards of
contract and supply in second class cities and boards with similar
powers in other cities and the common council or similar legislative
body in cities which have no boards of contract and supply or bodies
with similar powers, shall make rules and regulations not inconsistent
with general laws or their charter, which shall prescribe the procedure,
conditions, methods and practices that shall prevail in regard to all
purchases of materials and supplies by the purchasing department or
agency, and all departments, boards, bureaus and offices of the city for
which supplies are purchased shall obey and comply with such rules and
regulations. The purchasing department or agency may sell, under the
direction of the board of contract and supply or any body having similar
powers or the common council or similar legislative body in those cities
which have no boards of contract and supply or body with similar powers,
all property, real and personal, of the city not needed for public use
and authorized to be sold. The purchasing department or agency shall
have charge of such storerooms and warehouses of the city as the
legislative body by ordinance may prescribe.

The purchasing agent and such other subordinates of the department as
the common council or other legislative body may designate, shall within
ten days after appointment execute bonds to be approved by the mayor,
payable to such city in amounts to be prescribed by ordinance of the
common council or similar legislative body contingent on the faithful
performance of the duties of their offices and for a due accounting of
all property that may come under their care, custody and control.