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~.. ~~~_ ~ City Manager's Office February 12, 2003 Randy Ber General M EWEB / City of Eugene 777 Pearl Street, Room 105 Eugene, Oregon 97401-2793 (541)682-5010 (541)682-5414 Fax (541) 682-5045 TTY www.ci.eugene.or.us PO~x 10148 Fx~~ene OR 97440 Subject: Reauest to Initiate Joint Analvsis of Transportation Fee Billin~0 tions Dear Randy: In response to EWEB's decision not to include the Transportation System Maintenance Fee (TSMF) with other city utility fees on the EWEB bill, we are faced with a need to examine other billing options. Because of our current and on-going future relationship with respect to billing for wastewater and stormwater services, EWEB will necessarily be involved in evaluating and implementing changes in billing for these city services. To that end, I am requesting that EWEB and city staff work together to conduct an evaluation of the feasibility and costs of several options to meet the City of Eugene's utility billing needs. This evaluation would result in an established set of system requirements for billing system alternatives such that implementation work could be estimated and scheduled. Further, a proposal for revisions to the terms and conditions of our current billing agreement in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be developed to determine on-going reimbursements made by the City of Eugene to EWEB for services rendered in support of city billing systems. The general approach we propose for completing analysis and implementation of changes would be to contract with third-party resources to perform the bulk of the analysis,.planning and implementation work in order to minimize the impacts on and resource requirements of EWEB staf£ City staff would coordinate with EWEB to ensure that the contractor selected has appropriate lrnowledge of EWEB's Banner billing system, and operates in a manner so as to reduce impacts on EWEB resources to the maximum extent practicable. We would need EWEB staff to review and approve the selection of the third party, so we can ensure access to EWEB staff and EWEB systems necessary to conduct this analysis work. We realize that even this approach will.require a level of EWEB staff involvement for coordination purposes, and we are committed to reimburse EWEB for all costs of time and materials committed to this project. Specifically, we would ask for EWEB to commit resources to review proposed methods for completing the analysis and to monitor the results, so that the estimated costs and other impacts may be deemed reliable. The duration of the analysis and planning work would be expected to run from February 24, 2003 through April 11, 2003, at which hime consultant recommendations detailing billing alternatives would be su6mitted to EWEB staff. We would need EWEB staff to review the alternatives and prepare recommendations to EWEB management such that a determination of acceptable billing options is made within 30 days of that date. We anticipate that EWEB staff would spend approximately