CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM
ACTION REQUESTED:
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Approve the Award of Sole Source Procurement 17-042, Accounting Services, to Lauterbach & Amen, LLP for an amount not to exceed $131,820 and for a one-year term.
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DEPARTMENT: Finance Department
SUBMITTED BY: Rachel Mayer, Finance Director
BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW:
N/A
BACKGROUND:
In 2015, the Finance Department conducted a reorganization to better align the department's resources with future financial needs. As part of the reorganization, the accounting focused positions were reallocated to perform financial and budgetary analysis and the accounting functions were outsourced to a private accounting firm.
Finance staff evaluated the market and was able to identify one firm, Lauterbach & Amen, LLP (Lauterbach), that could meet the requirements to successfully provide accounting services:
* The firm is based in Illinois and currently provides services to the municipal accounting sector in Illinois.
* The firm successfully provided outsourcing services for municipal finance/ accounting departments in Illinois within the last three years.
* The firm is not the City's external auditor as this is considered a conflict of interest.
Because this was the first time the City solicited these services, an Intent to Sole Source was conducted to verify there were no other firms able to meet the City's requirements. The City did not receive any responses to the Intent to Sole Source and staff recommended approval of a two-year contract to Lauterbach in the amount of $253,000. The contract was awarded by City Council on December 1, 2015.
DISCUSSION:
The City's current Accounting Services Contract (16-112) with Lauterbach ends December 31, 2017. In order to ensure no other firms had entered the market in the last two years who are able to meet the City's requirements for providing accounting services, staff once again conducted an Intent to Sole Source in September 2017.
The Intent to Sole Source was advertised on the...
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