DATE: April 27, 2018
TO: Board of Mayor and Aldermen
FROM: Eric Stuckey, City Administrator
Kristine Tallent, Assistant City Administrator / CFO
Lawrence Sullivan, Revenue and Licensing Manager
Brian Wilcox, Purchasing Manager
SUBJECT:
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Consideration of procurement award to Automated Collection Services, Inc. (ACSI) of Nashville, Tennessee for bad debt collection services for Revenue Management and City Court (Purchasing Office Procurement Solicitation No. 2018-012; Contract No. 2018-0083) (05/08/18 WS)
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Purpose
The purpose of this procurement is to purchase bad debt collection services for Revenue Management and City Court. The services would be rendered primarily for past due amounts owed for City utility service bills (water, wastewater, reclaimed, stormwater, and sanitation) and City court fees and fines.
Background
The City published on March 8, 2018 a Notice to Proposers in the Williamson Herald for bad debt collection services. In addition, solicitation documents were sent on or about the same date directly to twelve (12) potential proposers known or thought to be interested in this solicitation. Proposals from five (5) vendors were publicly opened at the submittal opening held on April 12, 2018. A tabulation of the proposals received for this solicitation is attached.
All proposals received were evaluated, using the selection criteria included in the Request for Proposals, by staff of Revenue Management, City Court and Finance. The proposal that was scored the highest overall is Automated Collection Services, Inc. (ACSI) of Nashville, Tennessee. ACSI was high scorer for the two criteria of experience and technical capacity, second highest scorer for the two criteria of method of collection and financial strength, and low scorer for the criterion of quoted fees. Notable to the evaluators were perceived distinctions among the proposals regarding responsiveness to the Request for Proposals, as well as the collection methods and practices and the past performance as reported by the proposers. ACSI is the City’s current service provider for this service.
Financial Impact
Contingency fees charged by the service provider are added to the amount owed by and assessed to the debtor and thus are not budgeted. Therefore, this procurement would have no direct adverse financial impact on the City. Some proposers quoted their contingency fee as a percent of the pre-fee amount owed by the debtor while others quoted their contingency fee as a percent of the amount collected. The tabulation presents the contingency fees using both methodologies.
Options
In accordance with the solicitation documents, the City reserves the right to reject any and all proposals.
Recommendation
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Staff recommends that the City accept, contingent upon Law Department and City Administrator approval of City Contract No. 2018-0083, the proposal ranked highest by the proposal evaluation team, from Automated Collection Services, Inc. (ACSI) of Nashville, Tennessee, for bad debt collection services, and award this procurement to this proposer. Purchasing Manager Brian Wilcox believes the prepared solicitation documents as distributed allowed for competition among multiple vendors, and that the staff recommendation appears to be made in a fair and impartial manner based upon the proposals received. Contract No. 2018-0083 is not yet in final form and therefore is not attached. When it is in final form, and if the staff recommendation to accept the proposal from and award the procurement to ACSI is approved by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, then, pursuant to authority previously granted by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, Contract No. 2018-0083 will be executed by the City Administrator and subsequently reported to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.