Agenda - Council - 09/25/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I i If residents are to be charged for this service, will the contractor bill residents directly or will the City perform this function? Comparing the bids received, the difference in bid cost if the City does the billing is a $1.00 per month, per household. On an annual basis, this difference would total $42,000 ($1.00 times 12 months times 3500 households) The City's Finance Office has reviewed software, staffing, equipment and supply needs for a city-wide billing system. Software: The City's current software will meet the billing needs; however, our current cash receipting process is manual, and with an increase of 3500 payments per quarter, many arriving within a few days of the due date, our cash receipting should be computerized. Software cost will be approximately $5.000 ~;taffing: With quarterly billing, part-time temporary help would be utilized for entering the data base required initially and then maintaining with master file changes, sending out past due notices and general file maintenance. To avoid adding equipment that would be required only part of the time, and to minimize additional space needs, the work hours for the part-time temporary help would most likely be in the early morning and/or evenings hours. Supervision would be provided by a current full-time member of the Finance staff. Certain cash receipting functions will need to be performed during regular working hours, but the hours required and when they will be needed will be defined with experience. It is estimated that total hours for part-time temporary help would be approximately 2,500 per year, and supervision/financial accounting by full-time staff at 800 hours. Salary and associated costs would be $24,600 annually, Ec!_uipment: One additional CRT for cash receipting and a PC for more detailed financial analysis will be required at a start-up cost of $4.800 Supplies: The City would change to a postcard billing rather than the statement form currently used, thereby saving envelope stuffing time and its associated cost. The supplies and postage will total $4,400 annually, The software, staffing, equipment and supply costs will total $38.800 for the first year of the program; subsequent years would be $33.400 - all else being equal. This compares to the $42,000 difference in cost if the contractor does the billing. It should be noted that the Finance Office will not be staffed to perform as a traditional collection agency. Reminders and notices will be sent out, but seriously delinquent bills will be submitted to the council for special assessment through the County. Logistically, billing 3500 new unknown accounts will not happen instantly and collection will likely lag by up to five months from the actual expenditure. If the City does the billing for this service, the City will then gain an effective City-wide billing system for any number of billable services; additional services could be added with minimal staff time and development costs. During this time of decreasing revenues and increasing services, this capability would be an advantage. 3. How/when will the recycling containers and information be made available to each household? A recycling container is available for each household, and the contractor performing the recycling pick-up has pertinent information regarding the service that needs to reach each household. 177