Travis County Commissioners Court
October 26, 2004
Item 24
Number 24 is approve modification number 8 to contract number ma 8960322,
easy access, incorporated, for tax office computer system. Our next item will
be the one that involves the engineers.
>> 28.
>> number 28. Yeah, we have several people here on that.
But on 24, there are a couple of issues we need to discuss.
>> cyd grimes, Travis County purchasing agent. We -- I got
a call yesterday afternoon about 5:10 from dusty who is not happy with me.
The contractor agreed to charge the public 2.75% when they use their credit
cards at the tax office. Late yesterday afternoon -- we've been working on
this for months and months and months. Because of the issues that we have
with what we can do legally and what we can't do legally. So the county attorney
has been working on this for quite a while along with all of us. We thought
we had agreement to include in the exhibit that he would be charging 2.75.
Got a call yesterday late from dusty and he said that he wanted us to write
into the contract 3%. And he and I -- I didn't think that we should do that.
I thought it set a bad precedent. If we're going to be paying him 2.75, I
thought that should be reflected in the contract. I told dusty that he could
present his position to the Commissioners court and it obviously is your decision
on what we put into the contract. But my recommendation is to do what we're
actually doing and leave it as 2.75.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners. I would first like
to start with that particular point. This is -- this is -- we're asking for
an amendment to our maintenance contract. The vendor has offered for free
a website to Travis County citizens that they can use, and if they choose
to do something to pay the Travis County citizens, not Travis County, we're
not paying anything for this, the Travis County citizen would pay a fee which
would include the credit card fees, the gateway fees, and some nominal amount
for the vendor to be able to make up for posting this website. February 2003,
it became obvious to the tax office that the current vendor, we were using
the state vendor, was not going to be able to meet our goals and we started
talking to individuals about changing this because our vendor had always had
this maintenance agreement -- offered to do a website for us. August of 2003
I put it in writing that I did want this to be changed to have this in our
contract. I came to court, it will be four months ago in three days, to ask
y'all that we wanted to get away from the state contract, we wanted to do
this. Well, at that point when you say go ahead, our vendor started preparing
a website. They have program expenses of somewhere between $200,000 and $400,000,
and on the evening of August the 31st when the state website transferred over,
we were up and running and have been running with this website since about
5:00 on August the 31st. It's been the intent of the vendor and myself from
the beginning that we would follow the contract that we currently have with
the vendor for doing over-the-counter service which is $3 or 3% and that's
what we've told purchasing to go with and that's what the vendor wants. Now
that i've asked the vendor to try to do 2.75, the state as our state vendor
on the internet site, and he has done that at this point in time. And what
I’m looking at and what I’m upset about it appears we have always talked about
3% and what we're doing is -- no good deed goes unpunished. The guy is trying
to lessen the charge toes packs pairs, but he wants that comfort feeling of
the $3 and 3%, the same as two other contracts he has with Travis County.
There are two others that are -- people are wanting discussed doing the same
thing with him and he would like all of his contracts to be the same. I've
got it in writing from him on the agreement that he had sent back to purchasing
yesterday. That's what he wants to go. He has spent close to $400,000 in programming
costs to do this. The quarter percent -- so far, if you look at the first
handout I gave you, and I haven't showed this, but the first one so you can
see what's going on. Since August the 31st, those are how many hits we have
received on the internet site. You can see the graph across the top. That
really spiked one, that's the number of pages, over 70,000 pages were hit
on the last day of voter registration. People going there to see if they were
registered to vote in the correct place or not. That represented almost 13,500
people to look to see if they were registered to vote on October 4th. We couldn't
have handled if they had called. Hammer did not make one penny off doing this.
He is hosting this website in mcallen, Texas. Doesn't make a penny off doing
this. You can see the next big blip here is the first day of early voting.
They went back out once again to look to see where do I go early vote. There
were close to 7,000 people that day that went to the site looking for early
voting information. Once again, we could not have handled it had they called
the clerk or the tax office, we would not have been able to handle that. So
this system is certainly working. While I still have out that first page,
you see my handwriting at the top and i'll share it with cyd, we've had 127
payments for $79,000 that's come in during this time frame. 127 payments.
We have had 112,000 people come to this site and use theñr site. 127 people
have actually paid where he would receive some money out of this. So what
we're asking is -- and if you go to the third page because I think it's very
interesting, you see where we've had -- on that third page that's stapled
together, we've had 112,000 people come in looking at the site. Of those 112,
92,000 were first-time people, and then another 19 that makes up that number
are people that come in more than once. Title companies are coming in looking
at this multiple times. I’m sure a lot of the people out registering to vote
were in there multiple times. The first column you see is number of pages.
750,000 pages have been hit in this receiver even weeks time. We're looking
at information relating to the tax office we did not have to deal with a telephone
call. This has helped us out tremendously.
>> so now is there a listing of services that are provided
through this service? Or through this contract?
>> oh, yes, there's a very extensive contract. We're just
talking about -- attachment pw-plt is all time talking about. We've agreed
to-the vendor has agreed to everything they've put into the contract we would
be providing. He provided it on August 31st under the time frame we asked
for. We have the ability -- if you make a property tax payment on the internet
site, it's realtime. You see it's being paid and it's there. The voter registration
is near realtime. We were updating that about once an hour. We backed it off,
we got to be where it was almost taking our computer down. We backed it off
to once a day. As soon as we get through this we'll go back to once an hour
updating it. So if you do something different with your voter registration,
an hour later you will see that change live, which is nothing we were getting
with our other provider. We have reports people can go get. There are things
relating to motor vehicle.
>> some of these are free.
>> all of it is free. The only thing you are paying for is
property tax. We've had 127 people pay out of 112,000 that have used the site.
>> I’m sorry. Go ahead, judge.
>> my final question. So if I -- say i've got a couple things
I want to do including pay property taxes and I don't know what the fee is,
but at some point the fee pops up.
>> uh-huh. Before you would ever try to pay anything.
>> I have a choice of paying that fee or paying it up and
-- doing something else.
>> that's correct, sir. And you are given all these options.
>> so the informational stuff in terms of hi, just tell me
about, that's all for free.
>> that's all for free.
>> i've had many conversations with mr. Harlow about this.
If someone is going to have a problem with any kind of a fee on property taxes,
the quarter of a point is not a differential. They don't like the 2.75 and
therefore they are not going to use it and they are going to pay a check or
make out some other way to do it. But it seems like if that's what you all
have been going down the path with, it's going to be 3%, it's going to appeal
to a very narrow group anyway to pay that fee.
>> if you would go to the next page that I have here that
i've labeled the top at 3%, this is what we're doing in-house. You can see
where we've done -- I think it's 39,000 or 35,000. Wow tell me?
>> 36,000.
>> 36,000. People have come in and paid in last year and
a half over the counter in the tax office at 3%. That is the contract we have
there. If you look at the next column, don't take the figure at the bottom,
but you would see the highest was $39,000 for property tax on a single transaction.
The next column, the lowest, somebody came in and charged 50 cents and paid
the $3 fee for the privilege of doing the 50-cent transaction. That's the
lowest of all the transactions we've had. And we've done $8.9 million worth
of transactions at 3%. Just an as aside, and I’m sorry I didn't print this
for you, this is showing yesterday as k tkp-fplt an, we looked at their site,
their most viewed site, referred site in the community is the Travis County
voter registration site for one of the main channels in Austin. This site
is really being used. The voter registration site costs nothing. The vendor
is making absolutely nothing off of doing most of what he's done so far. And
so what we're asking is what he has asked for, which is the last two pieces
of paper, just make the max $3 or 3%. If I can charge less, I will identity,
but don't force me to sign the contract that way. That's all he's asking.
>> [inaudible].
>> it's the customer. If they don't want to use it, he's
not going to get anything.
>> I would say we have paid $67,000 this year to ez vote
or to mr. Hammer on maintenance of the system. To say it's free, it's free
to the county in some respects, but it's not free -- I mean we spent $67,000.
>> that paid for what? About one and a half clerks? We couldn't
use the people power to replace this.
>> no. And the maintenance contract would have been the same
amount whether we had the website or not. So ...
>> so there is some discussion about where the 3% ought to
go, if we approve it. It would go in a contract modification.
>> it is this whole contract modification approving doing
this website that we did indeed start. I wanted to let you know we did start
it on August 31st. We've been moving forward with. That it is modifying that.
It's attachment saying it would be the max, we're asking for the max of $3
or 3%. If he wants to charge less, so be it. We're right now looking at --
right now he is having to do the same thing if you decided to do a check.
That is kind of ridiculous to charge 2.75 or 3% for a check in your checking
account. He's working to get this down to a flat rate -- if you did a $10,000
check, it would be $10 or some flat rate. Under this contract he would have
to charge 2.75 or come back to you all. We're looking at a max. As much as
what you all do each year when you publish a tax rate, you publish a max will
you go. You onset less. This is the same kind of thing, if you do less, do
it. That's what he's asking for.
>> but if we approve a max of 3% today, that aprice prospectively,
what about thar is advises he's provided --
>> he only has -- he has a $400,000 investment and right
now has 127 payments that have come in. He is looking at this and he has said
he would continue hopefully at the 2.75 changed. If the credit card companies
change the amount they are charging him, without coming back here and as I
went through the time line, it takes a long time for me to talk to you all.
>> if we put the max at 3%, he starts today.
>> whenever. But he would not go back and charge anything
and we're not planning on changing the charge of 2.75.
>> so the contract would not reflect what's actually being
paid.
>> wouldn't the contract modification become part of the
contract? It is, but right now we wrote in what he's actually charge,, 2.75.
>> but if we voted 3% today, why wouldn't we just change
2.75 to 3%?
>> do you want him to come back or --
>> I think we're entertaining whether we ought to raise to
it a max of 3% today.
>> effective today.
>> changing out the exhibit.
>> right.
>> again, it doesn't mean he's changing his rate.
>> he would just like to have the warm fussy just as when
you all set up this is what we publish, you would like a warm fuzzy. That's
all he wants.
>> the max will become the actual --
>> what's in the attachment.
>> even if it does, we're saying in view of the total circumstances,
the 3% is justified, and it's also against the backdrop that residents who
choose -- who do not wish to pay this don't have to.
>> that is correct.
>> then they have to travel down to the office and maybe
stand in line depending on the time of the year.
>> that is correct.
>> so it kind of -- have you to balance inconvenience and
what it costs you to do that as opposed to processing it over the internet
basically.
>> they can always drop a check in the mail.
>> or mail it, yes.
>> and we overall those suggestions on the internet.
>> it's just a user fee. It's your discretion. But I think
we ought to have it in the contract. Modification.
>> and I would also like to say that the county attorney
and the purchasing department has been great to work for. We just came to
this disagreement and I called s eutd last night.
>> we'll agree if you all walk out of here on good terms.
>> when we have a contract, when it says something that is
correct what it needs to be. We can't have warm fuzzies in all of our contracts
because we won't be able to administer them effectively.
>> this is the proper channel. You bring it to the court
and approve it and move on.
>> there also seems to be a communication disconnect for
whatever reason between what folks thought was going down the path of that
would be the number and nothing seeing it reflected in the ultimate contract.
Seems like there was a disconnect that needed to be written in at a much earlier
time than everybody proofing the contract, we need it to be 3. So it's okay.
We'll get through this.
>> move that the contract be modified to reflect a maximum
of 3%.
>> second.
>> $3 or 3%.
>> $3 or 3%.
>> effective today.
>> yes, ma'am. Discussion? All if favor? That passes by unanimous
vote. Thank you very much.
>> now that it's official, I would like for you to go to
Travis County tkabgs.org and look at the site. It was attempted to be a premier
site for Travis County. We've got nothing but good feedback. I think several
departments have loved it and we're getting wonderful response from citizens.
Thank you all for approving this today.
>> yes, please tell the staff they've done a wonderful job
and [inaudible].
>> thank you.
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Last Modified: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 3:26 PM