Agenda - Council Work Session - 05/14/2019

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Ramsey Resident Ad Sales Breakdown Year Number of Issues Total Ad Sales City Revenue 2017 5 $15,426.00 $ 7,713.00 2018 6 $21,346.00 $10,673.00 2019 3 $ 5,647.00 $ 2,823.50 Articles and Content Currently, each department head is responsible for supplying their own articles and photography to the Administrative Clerk. Department heads may choose to designate other support staff to supply Resident articles or, they will coordinate with the Communications and Events Coordinator to supply content. There would be no change to this process with the exception of the collection of content being coordinated by the Communications and Events Coordinator. Cost The 2018 net cost of producing the Ramsey Resident was $50,200. This figure includes advertising revenue, 184 hours of the Administrative Clerk's time but does not include any time spent by the Finance Department for processing invoices for ads. Over the course of 15 years, the City has invested more than $4,000 in newsletter design alone. PRIME is proposing $4,286/per 4-page Recycler, $6,500 per 16-page newsletter and $9,350 per 24-page issue. The estimated cost of outsourcing the newsletter to PRIME is approximately $48,186. This figure is an estimate based on PRIME's pricing and layout configuration. Distribution Currently, the Administrative Clerk coordinates the bulk mailing of the Ramsey Resident with the USPS. Each edition is distributed to approximately 10,600 homes. The City uses the Every Door Direct (EDD) numbers which are updated by the Administrative Clerk every two months in accordance with the USPS guidelines for bulk mailing. If outsourced, the distribution under PRIME would not change. Printing Under the current model, the Administrative Clerk coordinates the printing of materials with Countryside Printing. If outsourced, printing would be coordinated by PRIME. Publication Dates Under the current system, the Ramsey Resident is published in January, March, May, July, September and November, or bi-monthly. PRIME is proposing a quarterly newsletter to be published in January, April, July and October with a Community Resource Guide in the spring and one other publication (could be Ramsey Recycler, Parks & Recreation newsletter or other special section like Happy Days) in the fall. Contract Term PRIME is proposing a three year contract. The terms of the agreement will be reviewed and a longer -term contract may be reached in September of the third contract year. Each party shall retain the right to terminate the agreement by giving a 90-day written notice to the other party. The City would retain copyrights. Administrative Services Staffing The Administrative Clerk is currently responsible for collecting articles and laying out the newsletter. In 2018 the Administrative Clerk spent 184 hours on the newsletter. Staff proposes that the Administrative Clerk would spend more time on other duties within her job description, but especially records retention, which includes the ongoing task of scanning, retaining and destroying city records. Looking ahead, in December 2019 the part-time 20 hour per week City Clerk will retire. To help offset some of the loss of staffing hours, the long-term succession plan currently in place allocates an additional 11 hours per week to another employee already working part-time in Administrative Services, but this is still a drop of 9 hours per week in the Administrative Services Department. Opening up more time in the Administrative Clerk's schedule would help offset some of this reduction.