It is recommended that the City Council adopt the attached appropriation ordinance increasing estimated receipts and appropriations in the General Fund for the Municipal Court Services Department in the amount of $1,800,000.00 to account for the statutorily-authorized collection fee to be paid to Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP, under City Secretary Contract No. 43450 for collection of delinquent parking and criminal citations.

To improve collection of delinquent civil parking and criminal citations, the Municipal Court Services Department secured external collections services with Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP, for a five-year period beginning in August 2012, with two successive one-year renewal terms. The current contract period expired July 31, 2017; purchasing exercised the first renewal option for a period from August 1, 2017, through July 31, 2018. Under the terms of the Agreement the City remits the collection fee to Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP, resulting in no end-cost to the City.

Under the terms of the Agreement the City makes all payments to the Contractor once per calendar quarter of all actual collections fees received from the payments of citations referred to the firm. During Fiscal Year 2017, revenue and payments totaled $1,743,565.81. As part of the Fiscal Year 2018 budget deliberations the Municipal Court Department requested that Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP, be responsible for the collection of funds related to cases referred to the firm and remit to the City the funds less the collection fees. Subsequently the Department's budget was reduced to reflect this process change. Due to case management software challenges, this change was not permissible. By the Court continuing to collect the funds related to collection cases, there will be no impact to the General Fund balance, as both revenue and expenditures will increase by the same amount.