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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSTUDY - 2018-12-03 REV 12-7-18 CITY OF LIVONIA – CITY COUNCIL MINUTES OF STUDY MEETING HELD DECEMBER 3, 2018 Meeting was called to order at 8:55 p.m. by President Toy. Present: Cathy White, Kathleen McIntyre, Brian Meakin, Jim Jolly, Brandon Kritzman, Scott Bahr and Laura Toy. Absent: None. Cathy White led the meeting in the Pledge. Elected and appointed officials present: Mark Taormina, Director of Planning and Economic Development; Todd Zilincik, City Engineer; Paul Bernier, City Attorney; Susan M. Nash, City Clerk; Lynda Scheel, Treasurer; Sharon Dolmetsch, Deputy Treasurer; Mike Slater, Director of Finance, Dan Putnam, Director of Information Systems; Curtis Caid, Chief of Police; and Mayor Dennis Wright. AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION: None. NEW BUSINESS: 1. TAX RATE REQUEST FOR THE WAYNE COUNTY ZOOLOGICAL AUTHORITY FOR THE YEAR 2018: Office of the City Clerk, re: to set the rate of tax to be levied and requesting that it be collected as a winter tax. Jolly offered to receive and file this for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: RECEIVE & FILE CONSENT 2. TAX RATE REQUEST FOR THE WAYNE COUNTY ART INSTITUTE AUTHORITY FOR THE YEAR 2018: Office of the City Clerk, re: to set the rate of tax to be levied and requesting that it be collected as a winter tax. Jolly offered to receive and file this for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: RECEIVE & FILE CONSENT 3. TAX RATE REQUEST FOR HURON CLINTON METROPOLITAN AUTHORITY FOR THE YEAR 2018: Office of the City Clerk, re: to set the rate of tax to be levied and requesting that it be collected as a winter tax. McIntyre spoke on the benefits of the above tax items and stated that the Art Institute admission is free to all residents of the tri-county area, with the exception of special 2 exhibits and that is part of the benefit and she encouraged residents to visit the Institute. Jolly offered to receive and file this for the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: RECEIVE & FILE CONSENT 4. REQUEST TO APPROVE AN E-PAYMENT SERVICES AGREEMENT TO PROCESS CREDIT/DEBIT CARD TRANSACTIONS: Office of the Treasurer, re: to allow City Departments the capability of accepting debit/credit cards. Lynda Scheel, Treasurer, presented this request to Council. She stated she is requesting Council’s approval to enter into an E-payment Services Agreement with Point & Pay, LLC. She introduced Richard Malone, a representative of Point & Pay, and Mike Slater, Director of Finance, Sharon Dolmetsch, Deputy Treasurer, and Dan Putnam, Director of Information Systems. She stated over the last few years there has been an increased request by City customers for the ability and convenience of using credit and debit cards to transact City businesses. Currently the Treasurer’s Office utilizes two different providers to meet their needs for tax collection. However, there are City departments that do not currently accept credit and debit cards but would like to, such as the City Clerk, Inspection and Engineering Departments. It was determined that the City should explore whether one E-payment provider could meet the various City Departments’ needs. A committee was formed to research this comprising Chief Accountant Coline Coleman, Deputy Treasurer Sharon Dolmetsch, Information Systems Director Dan Putnam, and Accountant Connie Kumpula. It was important to have a provider that is full integrated with BS & A software which is used for Taxes, Inspection, Business and Animal Licenses. The committee did their research and then interviewed three companies. It was the determination of the committee that the provider that best met the various needs of the City was Point & Pay. Mr. Malone, from Point & Pay, was then invited in to meet with the City Clerk, Treasurer, Finance, Engineering, Inspection and the Parks & Rec Department Heads and/or their designees to review Point & Pay and we all concurred with the committee’s recommendation. For tax payments, Engineering, and Inspection permit fees, the property owner or contractor would be paying the convenience fee associated with the transaction. For departments with smaller transactions, transaction amounts, such as City Clerk and Parks & Recreation, the City will be absorbing the fee. A list of municipalities that use Point & Pay, the fee schedule for Point & Pay and the E-payment Services Agreement that has been reviewed and approved by our Law Department was included in the study packet. Therefore, they respectfully request Council’s approval to enter into an E-payment Services Agreement with Point & Pay. 3 Bahr stated that Treasurer Scheel had answered everyone question he had but one. He asked if she had any idea in the other Cities, what percentage that people used this process. Richard Malone, from Point & Pay, came to the podium to address Bahr’s question. He stated when the cities absorb rates, the utilization rate is higher then when there’s a convenience fee. So, when there is a convenience fee associated with this for a tax bill, the utilization rate is usually between 1 and 5%. When the absorbed rate is there, they tend to go up annually. For example, for utility billing they get used to it and it might start at 10% and work its way all the way up to 30, 40% over time. Bahr replied he expected it to be low because of that but was curious as to how low. Jolly indicated that he had a question which was answered very thoroughly earlier by the Treasurer and Director of Finance, when he inquired as to whether or not this was going to be utilized for water bills, which is probably the most frequent payment most residents have, and stated there is information coming on that in early 2019 and that this process that we’re talking about tonight will not be used for that because there is a better process in place for that. White asked Treasurer Scheel does this mean that those departments such as the City Clerk’s Office, that you can now do the entire transaction of things like garage sale permits, animal licenses, everything can be done on line now and Scheel responded they could be done at the City Clerk’s Office. White clarified saying her question was directed towards doing those transactions completely online. Clerk Nash responded that has not been set up yet, to take the credit cards online. White then asked wasn’t this the part where you got to the payment, the stumbling block, and it doesn’t appear that will be a stumbling block anymore, so can those transactions now be done by a resident in the comfort of their home. Dan Putnam, Director of Information Systems, came to the podium. He stated that will ultimately be something coming down the road, that they are not ready yet for the online payments on those things but it is coming. President Toy asked Treasurer Scheel if this was the only company that does this and Scheel responded no, the committee interviewed three companies that this, that provide these services and out of the three companies that were interviewed, they chose this company as the best company to best service the needs of our City. Toy then asked for an approximation of the costs involved but stated that they probably don’t have any idea of that yet, but asked to quantify the number of requests they get from residents. Scheel responded in the Treasurer’s Office they currently use this now but they pass on the convenience fee for using it, whether it’s online, over the phone, or in person, that convenience fee gets passed on the consumer, so there is no cost, per se, to the 4 City for doing that. She stated she believes currently that Parks & Rec uses a credit card service but it’s absorbed in the fee. So they’re able to set their fees for what they use it for and are able to determine, perhaps by looking at the past year’s fees as to how it’s used and determine what the fees would be for next year. So there is no cost or very little cost to the City to offer that. President Toy then stated there is still the existing fee on water bills now, but in the future will they also pay this convenience fee if they use a credit or debit card. Treasurer Scheel replied that the water bill is not part of this and stated that Mike Slater, Director of Finance, will address the issue of future use and fees. Mike Slater, Director of Finance, came to the podium. He stated the water bills are going to use a different process because Point & Pay is not integrated with the New World Financial System which is what is used to process water bills and collect water bills. This is integrated with BS & A, which is really associated with Inspection, Engineering, Clerk’s Office and the Treasurer’s Office. He went to state in regard to water bills, they currently accept credit cards when people come in and they have a test system out there for online payments. The reason it is not yet being promoted as they will do in the Spring of 2019, is that the interface for the online process needs improvement and that is going to be included in a new release from New World, our financial software provider in the Spring of 2019. So instead of promoting something which really is not going to be a great tool yet for our customers, they waned to wait until the process was fine tuned. President Toy asked if they intend to apply a fee to utilize that and Slater replied that the fee is absorbed by the City, so there’s no additional fee to the end users as will continue with the new system in the Spring of 2019. President Toy stated that she is not in favor of charging residents a fee for paying their bills. Slater stated that the charges where there is a convenience fee attached to it are for very large bills. There are contractors coming in for a building permit on a large project that could be six figures and that he doesn’t feel that other taxpayers should subsidize the costs for that permit. And the same with tax bills and with some of the engineering bonds. He said the other thing they did look at is what are other communities doing and there area no communities that absorb the costs for tax bills or these permits, so the City would be in line with what every other community is doing. President Toy then asked if during Mayor Kirksey’s era of administration, wasn’t there a suggestion of Commissioner Webb that talked about using American Express where credit was given back to the City when large payments were made using an American Express card. 5 Slater stated that issue did come before Council and the City was authorized to use a credit card to pay their bills and the theory at the time was that some large bills were paid where vendors would accept the payment by American Express, and that there were rebates back to the City that were financially beneficial. He stated that process was in place for approximately six to eight months, and then the vendors came back and stated it was costing them too much money and if the City wanted to continue using American Express, their prices would increase by 3%. So after that there was no net benefit to the City so they are not using it anymore. Bahr stated that American Express is the most expensive credit card to work with in the first place, so if we are worried about convenience fees, we shouldn’t be going that route. He said this is offering an additional service to our residents, if there’s a convenience fee with it, they are not obligated to use it if they don’t want to. He stated he thinks this makes 100% sense, it’s not putting any extra cost burden on our residents and he offered an approving resolution for the Consent Agenda if there is no objection. President Toy thanked Treasurer Scheel for her ingenuity and Scheel in turned thanked the committee that worked diligently to put this together, did a lot of research, took a lot of time in meeting with the companies and recommendations.. DIRECTION: APPROVING REGULAR 5. REQUEST FOR AUTHORIZATION TO PURCHASE SEVEN (7) MARKED PATROL VEHICLES UTILIZING STATE OF MICHIGAN AND COUNTIES OF OAKLAND AND MACOMB CONSORTIUM BID PRICING: Division of Police, re: from budgeted funds. Curtis Caid, Chief of Police, presented this request to Council. He stated the item before the Council is an annual request that is brought before them for their consideration to purchase replacement patrol vehicles. As indicated in the letter, they are requesting authorization for seven vehicles, one of those vehicles is earmarked as a replacement K-9 vehicle, and it’s noteworthy that they will be using forfeiture funds for that specific vehicle. The other vehicles are to be marked vehicles in their fleet and are budgeted funds that are in the 2019 budget. In addition to that, they utilize three consortiums that they piggy-back on basically and they pick the cheapest of the three and that’s the Oakland County Bid, the State of Michigan Bid, and the Macomb County Bid and the specifics of those individual bids are contained in the study packets and he is requesting Council’s authorization to proceed with this purchase. Meakin stated this is an annual visit from the Chief for patrol vehicles and offered an approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. 6 DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT 6. REQUEST TO APPROVE PURCHASE OF REPLACEMENT FIREWALL FOR CITY NETWORK: Department of Management Information Systems, re: to purchase WatchGuard M4600 with the high availability option, from budgeted funds. Casey O’Neil, Information Systems, presented this request to Council. He stated they are requesting approval to purchase a replacement of the main City firewall. The firewall is a critical component of the City’s network infrastructure, providing secure access to the internet and routing on the network. The current firewall is near the end of life and can no longer be updated. The replacement they are proposing is a WatchGuard M4600 Model with high availability meaning in the event of a failure it can immediately roll over to the second unit so that the network is still operational. The City has several smaller WatchGuard firewalls throughout various City buildings that work together and they have a lot of knowledge and trust in the firewalls of the WatchGuard brand. The vendor VisiCom Services is currently offering a special discount of approximately $8,000 if we complete this upgrade before the end of the year, bringing the total to $31,400.77, and these funds were budgeted for in the 2019 budget. President Toy thanked O’Neil and confirmed that he is going to be the new Director of Information Systems and congratulated him. Meakin said he appreciates the fact that there is an $8,000 savings in the cost and offered an approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. Bahr welcomed O’Neil to his new role and stated he was an excellent help when he sat next to him in his Junior year physics class and in organizing basketball games at his church on Friday afternoons. DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT 7. REQUEST TO APPROVE PURCHASE OF WEBHOSTING AND SUPPORT: Department of Management Information Systems, re: to provide a mobile app, a Citizen Request Tracker (including an interface with DPW’s CityWorks solution), video streaming and archive, the ability to broadcast electronic newsletter and alerts, new design that will be handicapped accessible and mobile friendly, guaranteed redesign after 48 months of service to keep the website fresh and innovative, hosting, and support, from budgeted funds. Dan Putnam, Director of Information Systems, presented this request to Council. He stated this item is something his department has been working on for a while. The City got involved with the website back in the late ‘90s. The initial website was a few pages of very static information, back then it was very typical of the environment. He 7 said times have moved forward, there is new technology, expanded content, there is now look up for Assessing, for Building Inspection, Taxes, with the ability to pay taxes online. Currently there is over 700 pages of consent of the City’s website. The website uses an open source content management system called DNN. Several years ago there was a major update to make the website a responsive design which means it works better with mobile devices. The current City website has some issues. The design is becoming dated and needs revision. The website needs to be kept current, the design methods have changed through the years. Updating the platform has become very troublesome. Trying to get the DNN version to work with the mobile – the modules we’re using, working with the skins that we’re using, all those pieces need to work together and we’re finding it’s becoming very difficult to keep up and try to keep it on the current platform, which has caused them to be behind currently. And while they’ve done a lot work on the current site to make it accessible, there’s no way they could ever get the current site to be truly ADA accessible. They have gotten a lot of the important areas done, but they would like to be able to make that happen. Editing the website has become difficult for their end users and they cannot offer bigger and newer features. He stated that he is before Council with a proposal to move the City website to a new vendor, CivicPlus. CivicPlus specializes in government websites with over 3,500 customers across the United States. They provide a highly integrated system which lowers the cost, provides an easy environment for the citizens, and allows for easy updating. Some of the things they will be able to accomplish with this will be a mobile app that can be downloaded from the Apple and Google stores, an easy to use agenda and minutes library, citizen relationship management (CRM) system, which provides tools to track requests and responses for citizens and will interface with our current DPW City Works platform. Online interactive forms that will be used to seek information from people. It will be handicapped accessible. Better integration with social media platforms, improved capabilities to assist residents with keeping up to date, an alert me type function, the ability to utilize credit cards for small transactions. He stated in his letter he listed some of the government units that currently use CivicPlus here in Michigan. Some of the significant ones are Lansing, East Lansing, Battle Creek, Royal Oak, Canton Township, and Washtenaw County. Our current costs for our website tools when we take all the tools that we use combined, it comes out to be about $37,000 a year. The first year of the CivicPlus proposal will cost $94,703; most of the cost of the conversion of the current content. There are 700 pages of content that’s got to be taken, moved, and placed on the new site. There’s also costs for the design of the new design. Every one of the CivicPlus websites looks different. They all reflect the community that they’re in. 8 They are bringing a five-year proposal on this item and after the annual costs, the cost drops down to $18,575 per year. After the third year, there is a provision that allows them to increase it up to 5% per year, so the City will be seeing lower costs. A nice feature of this proposal is that they automatically include in the proposal after four years a re-design of the website, it’s an ongoing process where it will continually be enhanced and improved. After their review, CivicPlus was the only vendor they found to bring forth at this time the highly integrated solution that is going to meet the City’s needs. CivicPlus is the same vendor that the Parks & Rec Department has chosen, which was recently approved, and will bring along some capabilities to do integration of the user accounts between the CivicRec System and the CivicPlus System we’ll be utilizing for everything else. CivicPlus does also offer a branding and graphics options at a cost of $7,000 and he stated that Bahr was involved with the marketing consortium and knows that $7,000 for branding and a logo type situation is a good price. The Administration hasn’t made a decision yet whether they want to go forward with that at this time or not but they’re asking to include the $7,000 in this request, with a decision to be made at a later date whether to go forward with that or not. Sufficient funds are already in their 2019 budget request in the Capital Outlay Computer Software account. A representative from CivicPlus is present at the meeting to answer any questions of Council. McIntyre stated she thinks this is outstanding and appreciates Putnam’s leadership and the IT Department’s leadership in looking for ways to take advantage of all the great new tools that are out there, not just for the work that gets done inside the City but for the residents as well. She offered an approving resolution for Consent if there were no objections. Bahr stated he had no objections and thanked Putman for his due diligence in keeping the City current. Kritzman stated that Putnam has been a big help in seeing these changes through and is a bigger step forward than he anticipated. McIntyre asked if the CP Pay function of this integrates with the E-Payment that was discussed earlier. 9 Putnam responded that the CP Pay portion at this point does not work directly with Point & Pay, but is compatible with the CivicRec. Matt Kuna, Regional Sales Manager for CivicPlus, came to the podium. He stated that CPPay would be if the City didn’t go with the other vendor, and had no other option, CPPay could be utilized to take those online payments. If the City does utilize them, single integration, you can link it out to them, it can be framed into the page to make all the payments through that. McIntyre stated that when she studied her packet she didn’t realize that they would have this option and asked what she could do to move her approving resolution on the Consent Agenda for Item Number 4, to put it on the Regular Agenda instead. Putnam responded that he believes that as they get further into this process at some point, for some smaller transactions using the CPPay but have to work with the Treasurer and Finance Department to look at that. McIntyre requested that the approving resolution Bahr offered on Item Number 4 be moved to the Regular Agenda rather than Consent. She also rescinded her request to put Item Number 7 on Consent and move it to the Regular Agenda. Jolly asked Kuna if his payment service was compatible with BS & A and Kuna responded no. Putnam stated if they do proceed with smaller transactions that are outside the BS & A software, they can look at the CPPay for that portion of it, again, with approval from the Treasurer and Finance Director. DIRECTION: APPROVING REGULAR 8. REQUEST FOR ADDITIONS TO THE LOCAL STREET SYSTEM FOR ACT 51 COMPUTATIONS: Engineering Division, re: for streets, or portions thereof, newly opened during 2018. Todd Zilincik, City Engineer, presented this request to Council. He stated this is a housekeeping measure, with Washington Park having three streets, Liberty Court, Liberty Drive and Independence Drive, the total of those is approximately 1,800 lineal feet, about a third of a mile, so they are asking City Council to authorize himself as City Engineer and Street Administrator, to apply to the Michigan Department of Transportation for the inclusion of the streets in the local street system for 2018, for Act 51 shares that they can now obtain money from the State. White offered an approving resolution for the Consent Agenda. 10 DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT 9. REQUEST TO RELEASE MONUMENTS AND MARKERS BOND: Engineering Division, re: for Cade Meadows Site Condominiums, located on the south side of Ann Arbor Trail between Newburgh Road and Dowling Avenue in the Northwest ¼ of Section 32. Todd Zilincik, City Engineer, presented this request to Council. He stated that they are requesting for a $700 bond refund on monuments and markers. Jolly offered an approving resolution on the Consent Agenda. DIRECTION: APPROVING CONSENT AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION None. As there were no further questions or comments, President Toy adjourned the Study Session at 9:32 p.m. on Monday, December 3, 2018. rd For the 1,863Regular Meeting of December 17, 2018 DATED: December 7, 2018 SUSAN M. NASH, CITY CLERK In accordance with Title II of the American with Disabilities Act as it pertains to access to Public Meetings, the City Clerk’s Office of the City of Livonia, upon adequate notice, will make reasonable accommodations for persons with special needs. Please call (734) 466- 2236 or email clerk@ci.livonia.mi.us if you need assistance. Council agendas are available on the City’s website – www.ci.livonia.mi.us - under Government, City Council, Agendas.