LIVERMORE FALLS – SAD 36 officials are continuing to move forward with efforts to increase their purchasing power – often by collaborating with other school districts – and drive down a variety of costs.

Interest in SAD 36’s pilot service center, which offers school districts around the state a chance to get lower prices on items and services they seek, is growing. Twenty-six school systems have participated in the pilot project, which school leaders here hope to increase as more service sites are set up around the state.

Colleen Akerman has been leading the charge, traveling the state, along with Superintendent Terry Despres to bring more school districts on board. The district is earning 2 percent on the money each school district saves. That will increase to 10 percent on July 1.

SAD 36 is expanding statewide use of the online portal system that works in a reverse bid process that has the lowest bid submitted by vendors winning instead of the highest.

There will be nine major centers around the state, with eight confirmed as of last week, Despres said. They are being set up in different parts of the state to serve school districts in those areas.

Those sites established besides SAD 36 are Berwick, United Technology Center, Bonny Eagle-Sebago Group, Oxford Hills, Mid Coast Technology Center, Augusta, Machias and possibly Caribou.

Those individual centers will be doing work similar to SAD 36’s for their area schools and earning revenue on savings.

Initially the idea of establishing a service center was a hard sell, but now school leaders are coming to them asking for their system to be a service center, Akerman told school directors April 17.

SAD 36 has developed all the vendors, more than 800, to work with and will be known as the the lead site or umbrella site. It will offer training to staff in other centers to use an online portal system to help people get the best prices on needed goods, Despres said.

It is a reverse-bid process that has 800 vendors vying to sell their products, he said.

Vendors may only see their bids in relationship to whether they’re leading or lagging.

What it does is encourage them to come back and submit a new bid to be more competitive, Despres said.

The decision to accept and buy the goods or services is up to individual school systems, which is the strength of this, he said.

Current savings from this school year are 10 percent on laptops, 13 percent on cartridges, 35 percent on janitorial supplies, 20 percent on monitors, 53 percent on cleaning supplies, 27 percent on auto scrubbers, 15 percent on services and 24 percent on furniture/equipment.

SAD 36’s particular center also offers services of veteran expertise if another district needs guidance.

The district receives payment for the service, which helps it keep its costs down and helps save money for the other school system, Despres said.

The pilot center has saved school districts thousands of dollars on products, services and equipment, according to an information sheet.