HomeMy WebLinkAboutE-8 Staff Report - Data Ticket PSA_NDACONSENT ITEM
E-8
TO: HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL
VIA: SERGIO GONZALEZ, CITY MANAGER
FROM: TALIKA M. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES
DATE: SEPTEMBER 19, 2022
SUBJECT: APPROVE PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AGREEMENT RENEWAL FOR DATA TICKET FOR
THE PROCESSING, COLLECTION AND PROVISION OF HEARING SERVICES RELATED
TO ADMINISTRATIVE CITATIONS ISSUED BY THE CITY
BACKGROUND:
One of the key initiatives Staff focused on the past few years is revenue enhancement and protection. Staff
regularly reviews the City’s revenue contracts and examines ways to ensure proper and timely collections. In
2017, Staff explored various methods to improve the collection of administrative citation fees. The
administrative citations process is labor intensive, and so Code Enforcement can best focus their efforts in the
field, the City opted to outsource the administrative fines collection process with Data Ticket. Outsourcing this
function freed up staff time to focus on other community improvement activities, and historically, service costs
are recovered through the citation process. Using Data Tickets’ services have been an effective recovery
partnership for the past five years.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Staff recommends the City Council take the following actions:
1)Approve waiving of purchasing procedures under municipal code Sec. 2-539 Waiving of Purchasing
Procedures in best interest of the City; and
2)Authorize the City Manager to execute a renewable professional services agreement with Data Ticket
for the processing, collection and provision of hearing services related to administrative citations
issued by the City for services in a not to exceed amount of $25,000 for the balance of fiscal year
2022-23.
APPROVED
CITY COUNCIL
9/19/2022
PSA For Data Ticket
September 19, 2022
Page 2
ANALYSIS:
State and local law authorize the City to issue administrative citations for violations of the Azusa Municipal
Code. (See, A.M.C. §§1-24 through 1-35).
Section 53069.4 of the California Government Code authorizes a local agency to utilize civil penalties or
administrative citations as a means of enforcing municipal code provisions. Cities may process these citations
in-house (including collections, accounting and appeals) or contract these services to a third-party provider.
The proposed agreement is for processing of code enforcement administrative citations. The scope of services
will remain the same as the past five years including processing, collecting, and providing hearing services
related to administrative citations issued by the City, as outlined in the attached agreement. Staff has negotiated
a lower processing fee for this renewal, and the price for manual administrative citation processing services will
decrease from $19 to $16 per citation and electronic administrative citation processing from $15 to $14 per
citation. Below is a summary of the net revenues collected by our City for the past five years totaling $177,840
after paying for service processing fees. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government mandated shut-down
impacted revenues in FY 2020-21, but staff anticipates the trend will improve going forward.
Overall, Staff recommends the City Council to waive the purchasing procedures pursuant to the municipal code
as allowed under AMC Section 2-539 in best interest of the City and approve the scope of services and
performance agreement with Data Ticket, Inc. for processing of administrative citations issued by the City, on
the terms and conditions specified in the attached proposed agreement. Data Ticket, Inc. has performed these
services for the past several years successfully. Transferring data to continue collection services would be cost-
prohibited and time consuming on City staff. In addition, Data Ticket, Inc. currently provides additional services
to the City such as hearing services under separate contracts whereas keeping these services with the same vendor
keeps costs down.
Fiscal Year Revenues
FY2017-18 55,591$
FY2018-19 32,978$
FY2019-20 42,245$
FY2020-21 20,347$
FY2021-22 26,678$
Total 177,840$
PSA For Data Ticket
September 19, 2022
Page 3
FISCAL IMPACT:
The cost of the services to be performed are covered by a processing fee included in the citation. Based on the
average number of administrative citations issued by the City, it is estimated an additional $26,000 to $30,000
in General Fund revenues will be generated annually.
Prepared By: Prepared By:
Richard Lam Rick McMinn
Budget & Revenue Manager Community Improvement Manager
Reviewed By: Reviewed by:
Talika M. Johnson Nico De Anda-Scia
Director of Administrative Services Deputy City Manager
Reviewed and Approved by:
Sergio Gonzalez
City Manager
Attachments: 1) Data Ticket Professional Services Agreement 2) Data Ticket Proposed Fees
Attachment 1
Attachment 2