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„thy S TAFF REPORT
Administrative Services Department
DATE: June 21, 2011
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Hue C. Quach, Administrative Services Director
SUBJECT: Professional Services Agreement - Information Systems Management
Recommendation: Authorize the City Manager to execute a Professional
Service Agreement with Knight Communications for the Fiscal Year 2011-
12 with an annual contract price of $324,000.
SUMMARY
Knight Communications (Knight) is the consultant providing Management Information
Technology services to the City. Knight provides a comprehensive service keeping the
City's network infrastructure running without major downtime to the City and is involved
with all aspects of the city's computer infrastructure, diagnosis of all hardware and
software issues. Since the reorganization and outsourcing of Information Technology,
Knight's performance has been excellent for the city with many compliments from all
departments for their responsiveness and their ability to provide or find solutions.
The current agreement with Knight will end on June 30, 2011. The City has the option
of going through a request for proposal process or with Council approval, grants a one
year renewal agreement. Knight has approached the City and offered to reduce the
existing contract cost by 10.4% from $361,400 to $324,000 while maintaining current
service level which includes: 1 I.T. Manager, 2 Network/PC technicians, 1 Application
Support Specialist (remote support), and one additional Network/PC technician as
needed, depending on workload and projects occurring in the City, to assure daily help
desk functions are not neglected.
Due to their highly specialized skills and the importance of maintaining consistency in
the management of our complex network citywide, staff is recommending for Council's
approval in granting a one year renewal of the contract in the amount of $324,000.
Mayor and City Council
June 21, 2011
Page 2 of 3
DISCUSSION
Since year 2000, I.T. has been outsourced to Knight. The city has continued to renew
annually with Knight by reasons of highly specialized skills required in this area, the
importance of maintaining consistency in the management of the City's complex
network system, and the overall satisfaction from all departments on the services that
Knight provides.
Under the terms of the agreement that was signed in 2007, Knight was to receive an
annual inflationary adjustment at the beginning of each new agreement period. Over
the last two years, as the recession constricted the city budget, Knight receptively
agreed to forgo their contracted consumer price index (CPI) adjustments in addition to
further reducing the yearly contracted cost. Effectively, the contract cost has been
reduced by 9.4% over the last two years.
The terms of the current agreement ends on June 30, 2011. Knight has approached the
City and has proposed to reduce to the existing contract cost by 10.4% from $361,400
to $324,000 while maintaining current service level which includes: 1 I.T. Manager, 2
Network/PC technicians, 1 Application Support Specialist (remote support), and one
additional Network/PC technician as needed to assure daily help desk functions are not
neglected. Knight further provided assurance to the City in cost control by modifying the
contract to state, "any system or issues or special projects related to I.T. in the future
will be covered under this agreement with no additional charges to the City."
To determine the competitiveness of Knight's proposal, staff conducted an informal
survey of other cities on cost and service level comparative to Arcadia. A common
measure that could be applied was the full -time equivalent (FTE) staffing level that was
offered within the contracted cost. As an example, based on bids that were submitted
to a sample city within the last year, we found the cost for 3.5 FTE staffing level, the
closest comparative to Arcadia, ranged from $304,650 to $395,450. The proposal
provided by Knight provides Arcadia with 4 FTE plus another technician available based
on needs. Additionally, recognizing that service demands and complexity of a particular
agency's I.T. system are keys to pricing services, with all things comparable, staff
believes Arcadia's system to be more complex as our computer infrastructure includes
Police, Fire, and Library Departments whereas this particular city does not. Based on
those findings staff believes Knight's proposal to be very competitive and within current
market rate.
Knight provides a comprehensive service of effectively keeping citywide information
systems running without major downtime to the City. Knight services include assisting
with the City's various data development, collection, and retrieval systems. It provides
technical support to the City with a 24hrs on call service for computer network, servers,
Mayor and City Council
June 21, 2011
Page 3 of 3
personal computers and printers along with specialized technologies of specific City
departments encompassing imaging systems, records management, library automation
systems, and more. Knight works closely with third party hardware /software vendors in
the resolution of problems associated with their hardware and software. In general,
Knight's I.T. staff provides support and manages 26 servers citywide and plays a critical
role in providing support between the City and its vendors of 55 different software
applications when software issues arises.
In addition to the day to day operation, Knight provides assistance and review of the
City's I.T. assets and long range infrastructure improvements by continuing to evaluate
technology resources in the marketplace and determine appropriate technology
upgrades to ensure City business needs are being met.
Knight Communications was highly recommended by other cities such as Monterey
Park and Montebello when they were chosen to provide I.T. service to Arcadia. At
inception, their work performances have been excellent year over year and very
knowledgeable in helping the city bridge to the latest available technology. Due to their
highly specialized skills and the importance of maintaining consistency in the
management of our complex network citywide, staff is recommending for Council's
approval in granting a one year renewal contract in the amount of $324,000.
FISCAL IMPACT
The annual cost for providing information systems management is $324,000.
Appropriate funds are budgeted in the General Fund Operating budget for Fiscal Year
2011 -12.
RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that the City Council authorized the City Manager to enter into
a professional services agreement with Knight Communications for citywide
Information Technology Services for the Fiscal Year 2011 -12 with a contract
amount of $324,000.
Approved By:
Donald Penman
City Manager