Finance Highlights 2007 1016 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY OF SAN LEANDRO MEMORANDUM DATE: October 11, 2007 TO: Finance Conunittee VIA: Jesse Baloca, Finance Directoy~ FROM: Carla Rodriguez, Deputy FinLan~~ce~ Director SUBJECT: Banking Services Request for Proposal RECOMMENDATION Staff recommends Finance Committee approval for forwarding to the City Council award for a new Banking Services provider. Staff recommendation is that the new banking services will be for a term of 5 to 7 years. BACKGROUND The City has been banking with Bank of America for the past 35 years when it was previously known as Bank of Italy. Best business practice includes ensuring competitive pricing, seeking improvements and efficiencies with technological enhancements, improving audit controls and reporting, and obtaining enhanced customer service. To our knowledge, the City has never conducted a Request for Proposal (RFP) to seek better rates and improve service enhancements. For the past years, Bank of America has continuously increased service charges to the City without prior notification of price changes, has experienced a significant turnover in key Government relations personnel, and has been unable to provide adequate customer support or staff training on new software programs and procedures. Currently, the banking industry has offered a wide array of technological advancements such as fraud protection, on-line banking services, availability of cash by reducing- cash float days, annual analysis review of City's- accounts and other service enhancements that will provide the City with better cash management leading to greater investment opportunities. The City currently pays an estimated $ll 1K for the following services: Annual Cost General Banking $21,480 Cash grad Transit Services 30,000 Merchant Card Services 59,724 Total $111,204 Staffs goal, in addition to seeking technological improvements, enhancing customer service and gaining operating efficiencies, is to reduce overall annual cost by 30% or $33K.