Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Committees - Operations - 09/14/1989 OPERATIONS COMMITTEE MINUTES September 14, 1989 COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Christi Houser Steve Dowell STAFF PRESENT: Ed Chow Sandra Driscoll Tony McCarthy Ron Spang Charles Lindsey Marty Mulholland Dee Gergich APPROVAL OF VOUCHERS All claims for the period ending September 14, 1989 in the amount of $1,704,798.64 were approved for payment. LASERPRINT CONTRACT RENEWAL Finance Director McCarthy explained to the Committee that this was a renewal of a contract to print the City's utility bills. Currently, City utility bills are printed by an outside firm so they can be micar encoded to be read by the bank's lockbox equipment. That saves the City 10¢ per bill in bank processing costs. That firm picks up a computer tape at City Hall , prints the bills with micar encoding, inserts them with any other inserts the City might have and takes them to the post office. Currently, the City pays about $19,000 for this service and we,are proposing to continue the contract with two minor changes. One change will increase the cost of the inserts from .2¢ per insert to .40 per insert for monthly impact of about $24. This provides a monthly savings of nearly $3,000 if the items were mailed directly with separate postage. The additional contract char is for increasing per trip charge to pick up the City's tape from $8 per trip to' $9 per trip. The Finance Department feels like the contract is very cost effective because the City does not have a laserprinter which would cost about $65,000 nor do they have a stuffing machine which would cost about $20,000. In addition, the stuffing process would take the City staff approximately 4 hours per month. The Committee approved the Finance Department request for a contract extension. Al a Operations Committee Minutes September 14, 1989 Page 2 AUTHORIZATION TO DEAL WITH THE SOLE SOURCE VENDOR AND UTILITY BILLING SYSTEM Finance Director McCarthy explained that a committee of City employees from the Finance, Information Services and Public Works Department had been reviewing proposals from two vendors for utility billing software. Initially request for proposals had gone out to ten vendors, three vendors responded but one vendor failed to show up at the user conference. Two vendors presented their proposals at a user conference but one of the vendors was proposing that they rewrite some existing software for the City's needs. The other vendor was proposing to use existing software and the City staff from the three departments felt like that vendor's software was best suited for the City's needs. The total cost of the software including equipment for hand-held meter reading devices is $69,951.51 within the City's budget of $70,000. To meet this budgetary constraint the City had to remove the graphics displays on the utility bills and had to reduce the contingency amount to zero. If additional expenditures are needed, utility operating budgets will need to come up with the funds. The Committee approved the request to authorize negotiation with Idaho Computer Systems for implementation of utility billing software. PAY PHONE CONTRACT WITH U.S. WEST Information Services Director Ron Spang explained to the Committee that with the help of the Police Department, his staff was able to negotiate favorable pay phone contracts with U.S. West and AT&T. The contract provides _a 10 percent commission rate on pay phones plus a 14 percent commission rate on long distance calls. The item was presented to the Committee as an information only item as previously it had been before the Public Safety Committee for the Corrections Facility only. RESOLUTION ON CREATING A SOLID WASTE UTILITY ACCOUNT IN THE ENMIRONMENTAL MITIGATION FUND City Attorney Sandra Driscoll explained to the Committee that Steve DiJulio had drafted a resolution to rename the Landfill Mitigation Account within Environmental Mitigation Fund to the Solid Waste Utility Account. This was needed to reflect City Council action with respect to "getting back" into the garbage business. The fund will be used for its existing purposes that of collecting garbage utility' taxes and associated grant revenue, and paying for various solid waste related expenditures.