Vendor Guidelines

Vendor Responsibilities

Vendors play an essential role in helping the College District provide a safe and healthy environment in its campuses. The College District expects that all vendors will comply with these guidelines.

These guidelines apply to vendors, including consultants and independent contractors, who conduct essential operations on campus such as:

• Delivery vendors (e.g., U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx and various supply vendors)
• Affiliate contractors (e.g., custodial, Bookstore, and Copy Center)
• Construction vendors on active, long-term construction sites
• Vendors and their subcontractors on short-term renovation sites
• Vendors conducting emergency and non-emergency maintenance
• Consultants (e.g., engineering, environmental, and training consultants) and independent contractors

Vendor Health

• Vendors must ensure that any of their employees exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, as enumerated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), notify their supervisor and do not report to any College District campus.
• Vendors must ensure that vendor’s employees report to them if they live with or have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, and that such employees follow CDC guidelines, regardless of whether they are symptomatic.
• Vendors must ensure that their employees who exhibit symptoms of COVID-19 while on a College District campus leave campus immediately and not return until they have fully complied with all guidelines and protocols of the CDC, local health departments, and the employee’s medical personnel. Further, before returning to a College District campus, the vendor must provide written documentation from appropriate medical personnel that their employee is no longer COVID-19 positive.
• The vendor must immediately alert their College District point of contact in any of the above situations.
• Vendors should routinely clean and wipe down high-touch surfaces in the area(s) within their work zone(s) per CDC guidance.

Meetings, Inspections and Other Work Gatherings

• Vendors must practice physical distancing and not gather in groups in compliance with CDC and State guidelines.
• Vendors should consider holding meetings and inspections virtually (i.e., videoconferencing or teleconferencing), when possible.
• If a meeting or inspection cannot be held virtually and must be held in-person on campus, such as a construction inspection, Blinn College requires the meeting to be:
• Scheduled ahead of time and not conducted unannounced
• Only attended by essential employees
• Scheduled over multiple sessions if many individuals must attend the meeting
• Held in open, well-ventilated spaces maintaining at least six feet of space between attendees
• Whenever possible, construction inspections should be conducted outside of normal College business hours to limit interactions

Hygiene Best Practices

• Vendors should follow all hygiene best practices recommended by the CDC to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Reporting On-Campus Vendor Operations, As Necessary

• Vendors should coordinate with their College District point of contact to report and arrange for on-campus operations and confirm once work is completed, as necessary.

Blinn College reserves the right to update these guidelines and implement additional precautionary measures at any time.