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SR-05131986-6V~-v M(AY i 3 1986 /`' 1 ~ t , `__ FD:CMD:lh:datacomr Council Meeting: May 13, 1986 Santa Monica, California TO: MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL FROM: City Staff SUBJECT: RECOMMENDATION TO AUTHORIZE THE CITY MANAGER TO NEGOTIATE AND EXECUTE AN AGREEMENT WITH DATACOM SYSTEMS FOR THE PROCESSING OF PARKING CITATIONS Introduction This report recommends that the City Council authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute an agreement with DATACOM SYSTEMS for the processing of City parking citations. Background Under State law, the Santa Monica Municipal Court is responsible for the processing of parking citations. However several years ago the City agreed to use City staff to assist the Court in fulfilling this responsibility. This assistance consists of: a) four clerical staff stationed at the courthouse who open mail, prepare payments and dismissals for data entry, answer telephone inquiries, file reports and assist court staff at the bail window, and b) data processing staff who perform all associated data processing activities. In consideration for this assistance provided by City staff, the Court only retains 11% of net parking citation revenues paid to the court to cover its costs after processing various deductions as required under State law: - 1 - w ~~ MAY ~ 3 198i $3.00/issued citation for court construction costs and $1.00/vehicle registration placed on hold with the State Department of Motor Vehicles for non-payment of a parking citation. Attached to this staff report is a more detailed listing of the processing functions currently performed by City and Court staff and how these processing functions would be distributed should the City contract with DATACOM SYSTEMS. Improvements Needed in Processing Functions Performed by the City Since parking citation payments constitute a major revenue source to the City, during the Spring of 1984, staff performed a preliminary review of all processing functions performed by the City. As a result of that preliminary study, in June 1984 Council authorized contracting with Coopers & Lybrand, a major accounting and management/systems consulting firm, to review the entire processing system thoroughly to identify ways to improve processing efficiency, reduce costs and possibly increase revenues. Coopers & Lybrand completed its review in December 1984 and recommended that major system improvements could be realized by replacing the City's existing parking citation data processing system. Several years ago City staff developed the current City automated parking citation system. It is a batch system which is very cumbersome, inefficient and system documentation is missing. For example, the system does not produce adequate and reliable - 2 - management reports necessary to monitor the operation. Further, the system does not have on-line inquiry capabilities. This means that if a citizen makes an in person or telephone inquiry about a citation such as "I want to pay for all of my tickets. How much do I owe?" or "I thought I paid for this ticket. What do your records show?", these questions require manual look-up, resulting in questions going unanswered or staff spending up to 30 minutes per citation investigating the matter. Efforts to Improve Svstem Operations A City implementation team was formed consisting of staff from the City Manager's office and Information Systems and Finance Departments. Research was done to locate a replacement application software package. It was determined, however, that none existed for purchase which would serve the operational and management needs of the City of Santa Monica due to the size of our parking citation operation. The City issues approximately 350,000 citations annually. Efforts therefore were focused on the development of a new City parking citation system under the direction of City staff. However by the Fall of 1985 staff determined that DATACOM SYSTEMS, a company that was selected by competitive bidding to process parking citations for Los Angeles County, had a system in place that would meet the needs of the City of Santa Monica. DATACOM has implemented a similar system for the City of Los Angeles and is currently processing Santa Monica College Parking Citations for the Santa Monica Municipal Court. - 3 - Recommendation to Contract with DATACOM SYSTEMS During the last few months, staff have closely monitored DATACOM SYSTEMS' implementation and operation of both the Los Angeles County and City automated parking citation processing systems. Additionally, staff have recently completed a thorough program and on-site review of the DATACOM SYSTEMS operation for the County of Los Angeles and determined, at this time, that DATACOM'S Los Angeles County system best meets the City's parking citation data processing needs. Since the City of Santa Monica would be purchasng the same services already bid and awarded to DATACOM SYSTEMS by the County of Los Angeles, at this time the Council only needs to authorize the City Manager to negotiate and enter into an appropriate agreement with DATACOM SYSTEMS. Budget/Financial Impact Preliminary inquiries with DATACOM SYSTEMS indicates that the cost for their processing the approximately 350,000 parking citations annually issued by the City would be $296,000/year. Contracting with DATACOM SYSTEMS will substantially improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the data processing aspects of parking citation processing. Efficiency will be improved because: a) existing City computer hardware, and programming and data entry support valued at over $80,000/yr. can be shifted to other higher priority City data processing needs, b) the City's computer systems will not experience a response time decline which would result from operating a substantially revised parking - 4 - citation system on our own computer equipment, (the computer systems used by the City are designed to handle large volume on-line transaction processing, not large volume batch processing), and c) system development costs can be avoided. If the City were to elect to go to a stand-alone system for processing parking citations the hardware cost would be approximately $130,000. Further, two City data entry operators currently process parking citations. With the overall data processing function transferred to DATACOM SYSTEMS, one data entry operator position will be transferred to the Police Department where it will be responsibile for maintaining a new automated system for tracking moving violations and traffic accidents records. This transfer will be reflected in the proposed FY 1986/87 budget. The second data entry operator position will be retained in the Information Systems department to perform other data entry functions. City parking citation effectiveness, in terms of increased parking citation revenues, is expected to result from DATACOM SYSTEMS performing the City's parking citation-related data processing functions. This is primarily because DATACOM SYSTEMS will be able to send follow-up notifications to violators more quickly when they fail to pay. Studies have indicated that the shorter this time period, the higher is the percentage of violators that ultimately pay their violations. Further, some additional interest would be earned on the cash which would be received more quickly. For FY1986/87 it is estimated that - 5 - parking citation revenues would conservatively increase by approximately $360,000 due to more timely processing procedures resulting from a processing contract with DATACOM SYSTEMS. Finally, in addition to the cost avoidances and increased revenues resulting in a net benefit to City operations, the level of service to the public will increase primarily through DATACOM SYSTEMS' on-line inquiry capabilities. Sufficient appropriation authority to contract with DATACOM SYSTEMS will be included in the FY1986/87 proposed budget. Recommendation It is recommended that the City Council authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute an agreement with DATACOM SYSTEMS for the processing of City parking citations. Prepared by: Mike Dennis, Director of Finance Toby Menin, Collections Manager - 6 - FUNCTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE PROCESSING OF CITY PARKING CITATIONS Current Responsibilities Responsibilities Under Datacom Contract City Processing Clerical Staff Open mail Prepare payments & dismissals for data entry Answer phones File issued citations File paid citations File reports Assist at bail window County Court Staff City Processing Clerical Staff No change No change No change Datacom staff Datacom staff No change No change County Court Staff Receive payments at bail window No change Schedule Court appearances No change Conduct Court trials No change Deposit revenue No change Distribute revenue No change Send out form letters Datacom staff City Data Processing Staff Batch and key issued citations Batch and key payments & dismissals Produce management reports Interface with DMV* Produce and mail notices* Maintain automated system* City Data Processing Staff Datacom staff Datacom staff Datacom staff Datacom staff Datacom staff Datacom staff *A weekly tape is sent to DMV containing vehicle information; either license plate or vehicle identification number (vin). DMV responds with name and address of the registered owner. If the citation is not paid, a "Notice of Illegal Parking and Intention to Notify Department of Motor Vehicles" is mailed to the registered owner. Failure to respond to the notice by posting bail causes a record to be sent to DMV which results in the withholding of vehicle registration renewal. Subsequent payment causes a record to be sent to DMV releasing the vehicle and allowing renewal of registration. - 7 - Reference Contract No. 4683 (CCS).