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R-45-06 05/22/2006RESOLUTION i21/5 -b4 A RESOLUTION TO APPROVE A PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE VILLAGE OF LEMONT AND MUNICIPAL COLLECTIONS SERVICES, INC. NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the President and Board of Trustees of the Village of Lemont that: SECTION 1: That the Village Administrator is authorized to enter into a professional service agreement with Municipal Collection Services, Inc. (MCSI) for purposes of debt collection on behalf of the Village.. SECTION 2: Effective Date: This Resolution shall be in full force and effect from and after its passage, approval and publication in the manner provided by law. The Village Clerk of the Village of Lemont shall certify to the adoption of this Ordinance and cause the same to be published in pamphlet form. PASSED AND APPROVED BY THE PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE VILLAGE OF LEMONT, COOK, WILL AND DU PAGE COUNTIES ILLINOIS on this ao2"x1 Day of »/ , 2006. Debby Blatzer Peter Coules Cliff Miklos Brian Reaves Ronald Stapleton Jeanette Virgilio Attest: ase-664c-c- AYES CHARLENE SMOLLEN, Village Clerk NAYS PASSED ABSENT JOAN`'. PIAZZA, Village President VILLAGE OF LEMONT, ILLINOIS REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL COLLECTION AGENCY SERVICES RESPONDENT: MUNICIPAL COLLECTION SERVICES, INC. Section 1– General Background Information Municipal Collection Services, Inc. (MCSI) 7330 College Drive, Suite 108 Palos Heights, IL 60463 Ph. 708 -448 -6934 Fax 708 -448 -1749 www.violations.com matt_regan@violations.com Years in business: 13 years State Certification — Attachment A FEIN # - -36 3830268 Officers, Ownership, Managers: Frank Regan Matt Regan Roger Wood President/CEO Senior Vice -Pres. Senior Vice -Pres. 13 years experience 6 years experience 14 years experience Section 2 – Executive Summary MCSI has been collecting municipal debts for Illinois municipalities for the past 13 years with considerable success. There have been complaints filed over the years with the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation and the Illinois Attorney General. All complaints were properly handled with the appropriate agency and no violation of regulation was identified. Section 3 – Municipal/Governmental Experience MCSI has collected all types of municipal debts over the years, specifically including parking, compliance, vehicle sticker, building code, local ordinance violations, ambulance invoices, alarm invoices, property damage, and water /sewer billing. MCSI is only licensed in the State of Illinois and a copy of this state license is included as Attachment A. MCSI currently represents sixty (60) municipalities across the State. A list of these clients, their contacts and phone numbers is attached as Attachment B. Average Liquidation of bad debt accounts (recovery percentage) based on the past year is as follows: Parking/Compliance Violations -28.4% Building Code & Local Ordinance Violations -22.8% Ambulance, Alarms, Water, Other -20.6% Section 4 - General Account Processing/Handling Standard Collection Process in outlined in Attachment D. Citizen complaints regarding our collection staff are handled by. the Director, Collection Operations whether verbal or written. Citizen customer complaints relating to the debt assigned are handled by a Client Assistance Representative, whose job entails validating the accuracy of the debt to assure the correct debtor and amount of debt is being pursued. We work with our clients to find the best solution to any problem that may develop in the collection process. Collectors are assigned a work queue of accounts on a daily basis and have 90 days to cause a payment or payment plan for each account. This queue currently contains 1600 debtors per full -time collector and a lesser number for part -time collectors based on number of hours worked. They are expected to make a minimum of four attempts at telephone contact. If they are not successful, our collection system automatically sends the account to a second collector, who also has 90 days to cause a payment or payment plan. This collector is also expected to make a minimum of four attempts at telephone contact. If the 2nd collector is not successful, our collection system automatically sends the account to a holding disposition for a period of 180 days. At the end of this period, the collection system selects the account and sends it to a skip tracing queue in an effort to fmd the best telephone number to attempt new contact. From this skip tracing queue, the account is then sent to a third collector, who also has 90 days to cause a payment or payment plan. This collector also must make a minimum of four Since the largest segment of the collection work being performed is on parking violations, there are no telephone numbers provided by the client and many of the addresses from the Secretary of State license plate data are also not current. As a result, we must spend considerable time and expense in locating debtors and callable telephone numbers for them. The databases used for this purpose are Internet based and are available 24 -hours a day. Currently, MCSI is using DirectoryNet for telephone numbers, and Accurint and Insight for telephone, address, SS #, DOB. DirectoryNet and Accurint searches are performed as part of our collections system with direct links into these sources with direct responses being returned to the specific account being worked with no key stroking of data by staff. Insight is a multiple search database utilizing a wide range of searches depending on the available data we have from the account. After we have utilized the data from these sources and have not found a good mailing address or callable phone number, a credit report is produced from TransUnion to find new leads relating to their credit activity. There is no charge for any skip - tracing effort. Section 6 - Credit Bureau Reporting Credit bureau reporting is performed electronically at the end of each month. All consumer debts are reported to TransUnion, the most effective credit bureau for the Chicago area. Every consumer debt account is reported after being listed for a minimum of 45 -days, if it is not paid or has no payment plan established. We do not obtain any approval from our clients prior to reporting to the credit bureau. If there is any error discovered at any time during the collection process, the adverse information can be removed immediately with our online connection to the data the agency placed on any credit file. Section 7 - Payments Processing/Handling Payments may be accepted at the client location or at MCSI's offices. If payments are made to the client, the client notifies MCSI via fax identifying the debtor, the account number and the amount paid. If the client does not want to perform any payment processing at their offices, they can also simply mail the check or money order to MCSI for proper accounting in the monthly statement provided back to the client. There are very few checks received in the mail. Most payments are made via MasterCard or Visa debit/credit or check by phone. All posting of payments is MCSI is not a current member of the Better Business Bureau. Membership was not renewed for 2006 due to an evaluation of cost/benefit. Section 11— EOE Status A written policy regarding Equal Opportunity is posted in our facility. Section 12 — Ethnic Communication Currently, one collector has bi- lingual (Spanish) fluency and the agency will always maintain at least one bi- lingual collector. Adding other languages would be based on a volume clients needs. As soon as the caller is identified as a Spanish speaking individual, the receptionist or another collector will transfer the incoming call to the bi- lingual collector. The collection system also has the ability to "throw" an account to the collectors screen so there is little delay to the caller. Once an account is deemed to require bi- lingual assistance, the account is transferred to that specific collector for all future handling for inbound/outbound calling. No standard letters are generated in any language except English. On specific request, letters are generated in Spanish. Section 13 — Hours of Operation Office hours and calling hours are: 8:OOam to 8:OOpm Monday thru Thursday 8:OOam to 5:30pm on Friday and Saturday. MCSI does not provide a toll free number for incoming calls from debtors. Section 14 — Program Description A detail flow chart of our collection process is included in Attachment D. Section 15 — Fee Proposal Contingent fees for this RFP is proposed at 50% of monies collected for parking/compliance violations and 35% for all other municipal debts. There are no other fees. A rate of 50% is proposed on all accounts that are deemed suit worthy and are processed thru the court systems for the Village. Signed this 31' day of March, 2006 By: Title: i'(A V 1N3WHOVIIV