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. e ~CQ)~W Kathy Powell, David Webb and J made site visits and asked a series of questions of each proposers. As a result of that process, we believe each proposer is qualified to provide Delinquent Tax Collection Services to the City and the School District. A brief summary of each proposer follows: City Attorney Knox Askins and John Armstrong submitted a joint proposal with the firm of Linebarger Heard, Groggan, Blair, Graham, Pena & Sampson, LLP, which is the largest Delinquent Tax Collection Finn in the State, representing 1,350 clients, including the City of Houston, Houston ISD and Harris County. In visiting with Linebarger, we found it is common for them to team with a local attorney firm when responding to RFP's. Since this firm is the Delinquent Tax Collector for Harris County, the City currently receives benefit on suits they file on properties in La Porte. They have offices in La Porte and downtown Houston. Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott, L.L.P is also a large firm, having 800 clients. They are the second largest firm in the Houston market. Their offices are located across from the appraisal district. Tracey Foster is a sole practitioner. Her background includes several years ofTa"< Collection experience before going to school to obtain her law degree. Her offices are near Ellington Field. In approaching the selection process, one item of importance to us was the use of a single firm for the collection of taxes. I ask you to remember that our last contract with Dexter Joyner was specifically designed to end at the same time the School's contract ended. Attached is a letter sent to the School District which supports this position. By using one firm, it provides office efficiencies that are important to keep our cost down and our customer turn around time as quick as possible. If we dealt with two firms, we would have areas of duplicity of effort. We believe the joint collection agreement with the School District has been of big benefit to the taxpayer. By collecting local taxes out of one office, savings to the taxpayer are probably in the $125,000 per year range. I know for the City alone, our annual net costs would go up by about $35,000 if we were not joint venturing with the School. With this in mind, Kathy Powell and David Webb visited and agreed upon the Perdue finn. As mentioned earlier, each of the three firms proposing were qualified and would do us a good job. The selection of the Perdue fum was based primarily on familiarity with the rrrm. Both Kathy and David have worked with the Perdue finn before and have had good relationships with them. Dr. Sawyer has also utilized them. In addition, I worked with Perdue when I was the Tax Collector for the City of University Park. Since 75% of the total delinquent tax balance belongs to the School District, we listened very strongly to their needs. They specifically wanted Perdue and we had no reason to not want them. Please remember the City incurs no costs for the Delinquent Tax Collection Process. It is all born by the Delinquent Taxpayer with a state mandated 15% add-on fee. A brief summary of changes from the current provider include: The rum will provide title work on all property before suit is :filed and will incorporate all past owners as part of the suit. This step will assist in providing clean title to property that otherwise would remain uncollectable and unsaleable. Under our current provider, no title work was done on the property before it was filed upon which has resulted in the City obtaining title to property via a Constables Sale and the title we obtain is clouded by past owners. The rum will load our delinquent tax information into their own computer system and provide us with access to that system. This will allow us to keep track with the work they are doing and we can get up to the minute status reports. Under our current provider, all information was provided to us on hard copy and we were required to update the system ourselves. We were essentially operating the clerical portion of his office.