In a Tennessee county that uses the County Financial Management System of 1981, can the finance director count as a 'full-time purchasing agent' so the county can raise the competitive-bid threshold to $25,000?

Plain-English summary

Attorney General Herbert Slatery III addressed whether the director of a county finance department, appointed under the County Financial Management System of 1981 (Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5-21-101 to -130), qualified as a "full-time purchasing agent" for purposes of Tenn. Code Ann. § 12-3-1212. The classification mattered because § 12-3-1212 lets a local government entity that has both centralized purchasing authority and a full-time purchasing agent raise the threshold over which competitive sealed bidding is required, up to a cap of $25,000.

The AG answered no. The reasoning had two parts. First, when a county sets up a separate purchasing department under § 5-21-118(c) and hires a dedicated purchasing agent, the finance director loses all purchasing duties; without any purchasing function at all, the finance director cannot be a "purchasing agent." Second, even when the county does not set up a separate department and the finance director serves double duty as the county's purchasing agent under § 5-21-118(a), the director's working time is divided across budgeting, accounting, payroll, cash management, and purchasing. "Full-time" in plain English means devoting the whole of one's available working time to the role, and a finance director who covers multiple financial functions is not full-time on purchasing alone.

The AG analogized to International Ass'n of Firefighters Local 3266 v. Department of Retirement Sys., 987 P.2d 715 (Wash. App. 1999), where airport technicians who spent 40% of their time on fire prevention and preparedness were held not to be "full-time firefighters." Forty percent was more than they spent on any other single task, but it was not "full-time." Same logic here: a finance director who happens to handle purchasing as one of several duties is not a "full-time purchasing agent."

The practical consequence at the time: counties under the 1981 financial-management system could not enable the higher § 12-3-1212 non-bid threshold simply by pointing to the finance director. To qualify, they had to take the additional step under § 5-21-118(c) of setting up a separate purchasing department and hiring a purchasing agent whose available work time was wholly dedicated to that role.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2021. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: What does the $25,000 threshold do?
A: Section 12-3-1212 allowed certain local governments with centralized purchasing and a full-time purchasing agent to raise the cap on non-bid (i.e., not subject to public advertisement and sealed competitive bids) purchases to as much as $25,000 for nonemergency, nonproprietary purposes. Below the local-set threshold, a quote-and-vendor process was generally enough; above it, sealed competitive bidding was required.

Q: What is the County Financial Management System of 1981?
A: A local-option fiscal management system codified in Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5-21-101 to -130. A county that adopts it establishes a financial management committee and a county finance department headed by a finance director, who handles purchasing, accounting, budgeting, payroll, and cash management together.

Q: Could a county satisfy § 12-3-1212 by adopting a separate purchasing department?
A: Yes. Under § 5-21-118(c), the financial management committee could recommend (and the county legislative body could authorize) a separate purchasing department with its own purchasing agent. The opinion's logic was that this dedicated agent, whose only role was purchasing, would qualify as "full-time" in a way the multi-hat finance director did not.

Q: What about counties under the County Purchasing Law of 1957 or 1983?
A: The opinion focused on the 1981 financial-management system. Counties under the County Purchasing Law of 1957 (§§ 5-14-101 to -116) or the County Purchasing Law of 1983 (§§ 5-14-201 to -207) operate under a different set of statutory roles. Whether their purchasing officers qualify as "full-time" depends on those frameworks; the AG did not generalize.

Q: Does this affect municipal purchasing?
A: The opinion discussed only county-side authority. Cities operate under the Municipal Purchasing Law of 1983 (§§ 6-56-301 to -307) and various charter provisions. The "full-time purchasing agent" analysis would apply by analogy to a city's structure, but the opinion itself does not reach municipalities.

Q: How did the AG interpret "full-time"?
A: By plain-language canon. "Full-time" was not defined in the statute, so the AG turned to the New Oxford American Dictionary, which defines it as "occupying or using the whole of someone's available working time." Under that meaning, an officer who divides time across multiple statutory duties is not "full-time" for any one of them.

Q: Could a finance director's full attention to purchasing for short periods qualify?
A: The opinion did not address temporal flexibility. The "full-time" inquiry, as framed in the opinion, was about job structure and ongoing role allocation, not about time-of-day or peak-season effort. The cleanest path to qualification was a structurally dedicated purchasing agent, not a part-year reallocation.

Background and statutory framework

Tennessee's competitive-bidding regime for local government contracts is built on a default rule that significant purchases must go through public advertisement and sealed competitive bids. The General Assembly has carved out limited exceptions, and § 12-3-1212 is one of them: a non-bid threshold up to $25,000 for entities that meet two conditions, centralized purchasing authority and a full-time purchasing agent.

The "centralized purchasing" prong was easy to satisfy in the opinion's context. Counties under the 1981 financial-management system have all county purchasing handled centrally through the finance department; an opinion footnote (footnote 2 in the original) noted that prior AG guidance, Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 89-76 (May 10, 1989), described the 1981 Act as a "clear manifestation of an intent to establish uniform procedures and centralized responsibility." So centralization was a given.

The "full-time purchasing agent" prong was harder. Under § 5-21-118(a), the finance director (or a deputy appointed by the finance director) serves as the county's purchasing agent unless a separate department is established under § 5-21-118(c). When the finance director is the purchasing agent, the role is structurally part-time as to purchasing, because § 5-21-107(b) gives the finance director responsibility for the entire county financial system. The opinion treated that structural mixed role as fatal to the "full-time" requirement.

The Washington Court of Appeals decision the AG cited, International Ass'n of Firefighters Local 3266, illustrated the same principle in a different context: position titles do not control the "full-time" analysis; actual work allocation does. Even substantial time on a function is not enough if other functions also command substantial time.

The opinion was a clarification, not a policy change. Counties under the 1981 system that wanted the higher non-bid threshold under § 12-3-1212 needed to take the structural step of creating a separate purchasing department.

Citations and references

Statutes (as of 2021):
- Tenn. Code Ann. § 12-3-1212 (raised non-bid threshold for entities with full-time purchasing agent)
- Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5-14-101 to -116 (County Purchasing Law of 1957)
- Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5-14-201 to -207 (County Purchasing Law of 1983)
- Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5-21-101 to -130 (County Financial Management System of 1981, including §§ 5-21-103, -104, -105(e), -106, -107, -107(b), -118(a), -118(c)(1)-(2), -119(a))
- Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 6-56-301 to -307 (Municipal Purchasing Law of 1983)
- Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-2-203(a) (LEA purchasing reference within § 12-3-1212)

Cases and prior opinion:
- Mills v. Fulmarque, Inc., 360 S.W.3d 362 (Tenn. 2012) (natural and ordinary meaning of statutory language)
- State v. Clark, 355 S.W.3d 590 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2011) (dictionary as source for ordinary meaning)
- International Ass'n of Firefighters Local 3266 v. Department of Retirement Sys., 987 P.2d 715 (Wash. App. 1999) (substantial-but-not-exclusive function does not qualify as "full-time")
- Tenn. Att'y Gen. Op. 89-76 (May 10, 1989) (centralized purchasing under the 1981 Act)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/opinions.html
• Original PDF: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/ops/2021/op21-04.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort reproduction; the linked PDF is authoritative.

STATE OF TENNESSEE
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
March 18, 2021

Opinion No. 21-04

"Full-time purchasing agent" under Tenn. Code Ann. § 12-3-1212

QUESTION

Is the director of a county finance department who is appointed pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 5-21-106 under the County Financial Management System of 1981 a "full-time purchasing agent" for purposes of Tennessee Code Ann. § 12-3-1212?

OPINION

No.

ANALYSIS

Under Tennessee law, local government contracts are generally required to be let by competitive bidding. The General Assembly, though, has provided some exemptions from this general requirement. One such exemption is Tennessee Code Ann. § 12-3-1212, which authorizes certain local governmental entities to allow non-competitive bidding in an amount not to exceed $25,000 for nonemergency, nonproprietary purposes:

Notwithstanding any charter provision, private act, or other law to the contrary, any county, municipality, utility district, LEA in accordance with § 49-2-203(a), or other local governmental entity having centralized purchasing authority with a full-time purchasing agent is authorized, by resolution or ordinance of its governing body, to increase the threshold over which public advertisement and sealed competitive bids or proposals are required to an amount not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) for nonemergency, nonproprietary purchases . . . .

Tenn. Code Ann. § 12-3-1212.

Pertinent here, this provision authorizes only those local government entities "having centralized purchasing authority with a full-time purchasing agent" to avail themselves of this exemption. Counties that operate under the County Financial Management System of 1981 do have "centralized purchasing authority," but when the director of the finance department also serves as the county's purchasing agent a county operating under such a system does not have "a full-time purchasing agent."

Words used in a statute "must be given their natural and ordinary meaning in the context in which they appear and in light of the statute's general purpose." Mills v. Fulmarque, Inc., 360 S.W.3d 362, 368 (Tenn. 2012). A dictionary is the usual and accepted source for the "natural and ordinary meaning" of statutory language when the General Assembly has not otherwise defined a statutory term. State v. Clark, 355 S.W.3d 590, 593 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2011).

"Full-time" is generally understood to mean "occupying or using the whole of someone's available working time." New Oxford American Dictionary, 3d ed. 2010. Thus, a "full-time purchasing agent" is someone who devotes the whole of his or her working time to the demands and duties of the office of purchasing agent.

The County Financial Management System of 1981 is a local option act that establishes a system of county fiscal management. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 5-21-101 to -130. In counties that adopt this system, the Act establishes a county finance department and a county financial management committee to administer the county's finances, including purchasing, accounting, budgeting, payroll, cash management, and other financial matters. Id. §§ 5-21-103, -104.

The Act also provides for a finance director to oversee the county's finance department. Id. § 5-21-107. The finance director is appointed by the county's financial management committee, and he or she is responsible for the implementation of the policies and regulations adopted by the committee (or such special committees that are established by the county legislative body). Id. §§ 5-21-104, -106, -107. The finance director's duties include the installation and maintenance of a "purchasing, payroll, budgeting, accounting, and cash management system for the county." Id. § 5-21-107(b).

The purchasing system which the finance director must install and maintain is established by the financial management committee with the assistance of the county's purchasing agent. Id. §§ 5-21-107(b), -118(a), -119(a). Under the Act, the finance director (or a deputy appointed by the finance director) serves as the county's purchasing agent, id. § 5-21-118(a), unless the financial committee recommends, and the county legislative body authorizes, the establishment of a separate purchasing department with a person hired as purchasing agent for the county, id. § 5-21-118(c)(1). When a separate purchasing department is established and a purchasing agent is hired, all duties and responsibilities relative to purchasing are removed from the finance director. Id. § 5-21-118(c)(2).

In short, a finance director under the County Financial Management System of 1981 is charged with overseeing the various financial functions of the county. The finance director oversees budgeting, accounting, payroll, and cash management. The finance director also has duties and responsibilities relative to purchasing unless the county establishes a separate purchasing department and hires a purchasing agent, which results in the removal of those duties and responsibilities from the finance director.

Accordingly, because a finance director's duties and responsibilities are not wholly or primarily dedicated to purchasing, the finance director is not a full-time purchasing agent for purposes of Tenn. Code Ann. § 12-3-1212. First, since the finance director does not have any duties or responsibilities relative to purchasing when a county forms a separate purchasing department with its own purchasing agent under Tenn. Code Ann. § 5-21-118(c), the finance director is not a "full-time purchasing agent." Second, even when there is no separate purchasing department and the finance director serves as the county's purchasing agent, the finance director is not a "full-time" purchasing agent because as finance director his or her available work time is not wholly devoted to the duties of purchasing agent but is divided among several duties and responsibilities pertaining to the financial functioning of the county. See International Ass'n of Firefighters Local 3266 v. Department of Retirement Sys., 987 P.2d 715, 720-21 (Wash. App. 1999) (airport technicians who performed fire-fighting functions were not "full-time firefighters" even though they spent 40% of their time directly involved in fire prevention and preparedness, which constituted more time than they spent on any other task).

HERBERT H. SLATERY III
Attorney General and Reporter

ANDRÉE SOPHIA BLUMSTEIN
Solicitor General

LAURA T. KIDWELL
Assistant Solicitor General

Requested by:

The Honorable Frank S. Niceley
State Senator
425 Rep. John Lewis Way N.
Suite 712 Cordell Hull Bldg.
Nashville, TN 37243