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Regular City Council Meeting <br />September 23 , 2003 <br />Page 6 <br />discussed in June or July, and they placed it on hold until after the Council had <br />gotten finished with the budget. He said they were bringing it back and discuss <br />it again to see if the Council wanted to discuss it again and see if they wanted <br />to look at any of these departments for privatization, and if they do what process <br />they want to take. <br />Councilwoman Neeley stated that the water billing is privatized, is it not, and <br />if so, how is that working and has it been worth it. <br />Mr. Anderson advised he felt it was privatized and being outsourced because it <br />is for just the printing and mailing. All of the actual bill calculations and <br />everything is prepared by city staff and electronically forwarded to this <br />company. This company downloads it and processes it. Mr. Anderson advised <br />that it has worked very well. He said it is pretty much break even for what the <br />city could do it and the reason he recommended that the city change from that <br />was the folding stuffing equipment was going to have to be replaced and it <br />saved that capital expenditure, which was approximately 15 to 20 thousand <br />dollars. He said it also reduced the overtime required to do that process, which <br />is a very labor intensive process. <br />Mr. Anderson also advised that essentially the city outsourced the tax collection <br />process. He said they did that to save money at the time the savings was about <br />$10,000.00 when they turned the tax collection over the Lamar County <br />Appraisal District, but the trade-off was the city lost all control over the process. <br />Mayor Fendley advised that the area that the City Council left the discussion <br />was in the area of the Water Production Department and they could start with <br />that issue. He asked what methodology does the Council want to look at. What <br />do they want to look at in particular and how does the Council want to go about <br />looking at it. <br />Councilman Bell said in the previous discussions, he has not seen a guarantee <br />a suggestion possibly they may have some savings, but not a guarantee. Mr. <br />