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Do We Have to Bid This? How Districts Buy Staffing Services

The lawful ways a Pennsylvania district can buy contracted staffing — board approval, a cooperative contract, or a voluntary RFP — and the two exceptions.

Robert Flom, Founder of FullbenchUpdated October 1, 2026 · 7 min read

If you're the business manager fielding this question from your superintendent, here is the short answer for Pennsylvania: no, you generally do not have to bid a contracted staffing service. Every source below is linked to the statute or ruling itself. The School Code's competitive-bidding mandates cover construction work and supplies/equipment — not contracted services — which leaves you three lawful paths: direct board approval by recorded roll-call vote, riding a cooperative purchasing contract, or running a voluntary RFP. Two exceptions change the calculus: federal grant money paying the invoice, and outsourcing work your own employees currently perform.

Start with what the bidding statutes actually cover

The Public School Code's bidding requirements are narrower than most board members assume. 24 P.S. § 7-751 requires advertised competitive bidding for construction, reconstruction, repairs, and maintenance work on school property above a base amount of $18,500, subject to inflation adjustment. 24 P.S. § 8-807.1 does the same for furniture, equipment, and supplies above the same base. The adjusted numbers move every January: for 2026, formal bidding is required over $24,500, with three written or telephonic quotes required between $13,200 and $24,500 (IU13 publishes the current thresholds; the annual CPI adjustment appears in the Pennsylvania Bulletin).

Notice what is not on that list: contracted services. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court confirmed the principle in Malloy v. Boyertown Area School Board (1995). Boyertown awarded a $525,000 construction management contract without bidding; the Commonwealth Court said § 7-751's "work of any nature" language required a bid; the Supreme Court reversed, relying on the longstanding rule that contracts for professional skill services sit outside the competitive-bidding process. If a construction manager on a building project is exempt, a staffing services agreement — where selection turns on qualifications, credentialing, and judgment about people rather than a commodity price — rests on the same doctrine.

That does not mean "no process." It means the process is yours to choose. The trap is choosing one and then running it sloppily.

Path 1: direct board approval

The cleanest path is a straight board action. Under 24 P.S. § 5-508, entering into contracts of any kind where the amount exceeds one hundred dollars requires the affirmative vote of a majority of all members of the board, duly recorded showing how each member voted. The statute has teeth: actions taken without that recorded vote are void and unenforceable. So the mechanics matter — the agreement goes in the board packet, the item is on the agenda, and the minutes show a roll-call vote, not a voice vote buried in a consent motion your secretary can't reconstruct later.

Two practical additions. First, get your solicitor's confirmation in writing that the agreement is a contracted service outside § 7-751 and § 8-807.1; that memo is what you hand an auditor. Second, attach the rate schedule to the resolution so the amounts the board approved are part of the record.

Why boards use this path: it's the fastest and there's no procurement calendar to run. Why some hesitate: a "no-bid contract" line in the local paper. That is a communications problem, not a legal one — but it's real, which is why many boards prefer the next path.

Path 2: cooperative purchasing

Pennsylvania's Procurement Code expressly authorizes it. Under 62 Pa.C.S. § 1902, a public procurement unit "may either participate in, sponsor, conduct or administer a cooperative purchasing agreement for the procurement of any supplies, services or construction" — services are in the text, not inferred. This is the legal basis for riding contracts awarded by cooperatives like TIPS, Sourcewell, or Equalis: the co-op runs a competitive solicitation, awards vendors, and member districts purchase under the awarded contract instead of running their own.

Boards like this path because the competition happened somewhere, it's documented, and pricing was benchmarked — the optics of a no-bid award go away while the speed largely remains. The diligence is on you, though: read the underlying co-op contract and confirm it actually covers the staffing category you're buying (a janitorial award does not cover substitute teachers), confirm your solicitor is comfortable that the co-op's award process satisfies your board's own purchasing policy, and cite the co-op contract number in the board resolution. The § 5-508 roll-call vote still applies — piggybacking changes where the competition happened, not whether your board must act.

Path 3: the voluntary RFP

You can always run an RFP that the law doesn't require. Districts do it when several agencies are in the market and they want a structured comparison of rates, terms, and vetting practices — or when the board simply wants the record.

The catch is the Lasday principle. In Lasday v. Allegheny County (Pa. 1982), the county's airport-concession RFP said separate newsstand-only proposals would not be accepted — then the county took exactly such a proposal and awarded on it. The Supreme Court held that once a public body undertakes an RFP process, it must adhere to that procedure throughout, according to its own instructions and guidelines. Translated for your desk: don't publish evaluation criteria you won't actually score, don't accept a late or non-conforming proposal because you like the vendor, and don't negotiate off-sheet with one respondent while the others wait. A voluntary RFP is optional to start and mandatory to finish.

The federal-funds exception

If federal grant money pays the invoice — Title I, IDEA, or ESSER-style relief funds — the federal procurement standards in 2 CFR 200.320 attach regardless of what state law excuses. The structure is tiered: micro-purchases can be awarded without competitive quotes if the price is reasonable; purchases above the micro-purchase threshold but under the simplified acquisition threshold need price quotes "from an adequate number of qualified sources"; above that, you're into formal sealed bids or competitive proposals; noncompetitive awards are allowed only in narrow cases like single-source availability or public emergency. The dollar thresholds are incorporated by reference to the Federal Acquisition Regulation and shift over time, so check the current figures rather than a remembered number. Practically: your federal-programs procurement policy (Policy 626 in most Pennsylvania districts) governs here — match the funding source to the method before you sign, not after the monitor asks.

Outsourcing work your own employees do

One more Pennsylvania-specific step. Under 24 P.S. § 5-528, when a school employer contracts with a for-profit third party for non-instructional services performed by its own employees, it must solicit applications from third parties, give public notice — on or before the date bids are solicited, or at least 30 days before the public board meeting, whichever gives more notice — and hold at least one public hearing before a regularly scheduled board meeting. Displaced employees must be given consideration for similar positions, including an interview. Filling vacancies you cannot staff is a different situation from displacing an existing bargaining-unit workforce — know which one you're doing, and involve your solicitor (and realistically the union) before the board packet goes out.

The decision tree, in prose

Walk it in order. First, who is paying? If federal funds touch the invoice, follow 2 CFR 200's tiers and your Policy 626 — state-law exemptions don't excuse you. Second, whose work is it? If the contract replaces non-instructional work your own employees perform, run the § 5-528 notice-and-hearing steps before anything else. If neither applies, pick your path on the merits: direct board approval when speed matters and the board is comfortable owning the choice on a roll-call vote; a cooperative contract when you want documented competition and benchmarked pricing without running your own solicitation; a voluntary RFP when you want a head-to-head comparison — accepting that Lasday makes your own rules binding once you publish them. In every branch, the § 5-508 recorded vote and a clean board record are the constants.

Whichever branch you take, the record is what protects you — and that's the part a vendor management program can carry. Fullbench is a VMS for K-12 districts, free to the district, funded by a participation fee paid by the agencies deducted only after the district's payment is collected, and itemized. It produces the artifacts a procurement reviewer asks for: every request released simultaneously to every approved agency with timestamps, a district-configured required-document checklist with expiry enforcement, candidates advanced only by district staff, no start date while a submitted document awaits review or without a district-approved file, an exclusivity setting your district chooses in the agreement rather than one imposed on it, free conversion once a worker passes the service threshold the agreement states, and one consolidated invoice. That evidence trail works identically under a direct board award, a co-op award, or an RFP.