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When you’ve got to get stuff done on a limited budget, sometimes you have to get creative.

For the Greensboro Coliseum staff, that means wheeling and dealing with anything they can: advertising space, VIP parking and even event tickets.

All those things have been traded for things like grading and demolition work on various Coliseum projects, going back years.

“It’s a way of reducing government spending,” Coliseum Director Matt Brown said.

In legal terms, these are trade and barter agreements. But are they legal, folks like Triad Watch have wondered?

Earlier this month City Attorney Terry Wood give the practice a thumbs up on what seems to be a technicality.

State law allows cities to barter for things like goods and services.

The law, however, requires that construction projects over a certain amount of money be publicly bid and awarded to the lowest bidder.

By that policy, it would seem as though the Coliseum violated the law by hand-picking companies to give tickets or other goodies in exchange for, as in the case of a to-be-built VIP lounge, construction of a new heating and air conditioning system.

Not so, Wood said. The law discusses an “expenditure of public money” and case law shows that must refer to actual cash.

Although the case law does not specifically talk about trade and barter agreements, Wood feels confident it applies.

“What it says is, if you are going to spend city money, you must bid it,” Wood said. “We aren’t spending city money.”

UNC School of Government officials suggested that this is kind of an iffy situation. Professor Eileen Youens suggested it would probably best to bid things like the heating system.

“It’s kind of an interesting situation. They are not actually paying for (goods or construction) with money. They are paying for them with this stuff that would be equivalent,” Youens said.

The barter process does raise some question in Wood’s mind, however. For instance, picking a vendor to barter with might mean the city doesn’t follow its own rules for trying to work with minority contractors.

He suggested the city develop some procedure to fix that issue.