The Anoka-Hennepin school district gets great deals on computers, spaghetti sauce, chicken patties and cookies.
Northeast Metro 916 Intermediate School District got bargain-basement prices on maintenance supplies.
Throughout Minnesota, school districts have been banding together in purchasing pools to lower the cost of goods and services.
Now, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislators in the House and Senate want to make such practices mandatory.
All schools would participate
Their proposal, called "Minnesota K-12 Shared Service," would require districts to combine their buying power to purchase things such as food, supplies and equipment, and school buses. All Minnesota public schools and charter schools would have to participate.
Schools would have to do their buying from a list of companies approved and compiled by the Minnesota Department of Education. The idea is that creating large buying pools of districts drives prices down. Supporters of the measure say schools in other states have cut their buying costs 5 to 15 percent by using such arrangements.
"We believe that, by requiring districts to come together in these areas, services will be more efficient, less expensive, and of higher quality," said Pawlenty at the Capitol news conference Tuesday announcing the initiative. The idea is to get rid of costly duplication that cash-strapped schools can ill afford in a year when state funding for schools could be frozen or even cut.