(1) No elected or appointed official or officials of any city shall evade the provisions of this chapter requiring advertising for bids by purchasing or contracting for services and personal property piecemeal for the purpose of obtaining prices under the base amount of $18,500, subject to adjustment under section 11903.1 (relating to adjustments to base amount based on Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers), upon transactions which should, in the exercise of reasonable discretion and prudence, be conducted as one transaction amounting to more than the base amount of $18,500, subject to adjustment under section 11903.1.

(2) Paragraph (1) is intended to make unlawful the practice of evading advertising requirements by making a series of purchases or contracts, each for less than the advertising requirement price, or by making several simultaneous purchases or contracts, each below the price, when, in either case, the transactions involved should have been made as one transaction for one price.

(3) Any elected or appointed official who acts in violation of paragraph (1), knowing that the transaction upon which the elected or appointed official acts is or ought to be a part of a larger transaction and that it is being divided in order to evade the requirements as to advertising for bids, shall be jointly and severally subject to surcharge for 10% of the full amount of the contract or purchase. Wherever it shall appear that an elected or appointed official may have acted in violation of this section but the purchase or contract on which the elected or appointed official acted was not executed, this section shall be inapplicable.