As 2023 begins to wrap up, the Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety on Friday approved several agreement renewals with slight price increases.
The first contract renewal was with BIT Computers Inc. for $10,500 per month, or $126,000 total, for 2024 as presented by Staci Young, assistant to the mayor who also is a member of the city’s IT Governance Committee.
“They’ve been our IT contracted provider for a very long time. We’ve been under this annual type of contract with them for a few years now and we’d like to continue that. They’re providing awesome services to the city. They know the city really well, so we’d like to continue working with them,” she said, adding that BIT did request a small increase for cost of living. “This is the first time they requested an increase when we’ve worked with them.”
The increase is 5%, which Young said was in line with what the city was seeing with all of its other vendors and less than what it was seeing with some vendors.
The board approved the contract renewal.
Young then presented a six-month contract renewal with Language Matters for $11,760 for 2024. She said the contract with Language Matters was up for renewal and was for the city’s call services that it has.
“We decided that with the timing of a new mayor (Jeff Grose) coming in, it would make sense to continue this for a period of time so that we engage the new mayor, have discussions on how we want to continue or expand this without being rushed to do so. It’s working well as is, so we’d like to continue that between now and June for six months, which will give us time then to re-evaluate and determine if we want to make changes, expand things, etc. for the remainder of the year,” she stated.
Current Mayor Joe Thallemer said they sat down with Language Matters co-founder and CEO Lucas Fonseca and looked at the progress and challenges of the call center. He said they’re hoping that another six months of data for the call center will be helpful to make a better decision going forward.
He said originally the call center was set up “as a prototype program, if you will, and we’ve been really pleased with how it’s improved our accessibility from a language standpoint.” He also said it would be helpful to understand whether the call center needs to be expanded in any way or contracted.
The board approved the six-month services agreement with Language Matters.
Another agreement presented to the board was with CivicPlus for annual recurring services for the city’s website. The amount is $11,547.99 for 2024 and $14,319.51 for 2025.
Young said CivicPlus reached out to all of their customers to let them know that they were going to end all the renewal contracts that were in place - “which is what we’ve been under for years” - and start a new contract and CivicPlus was increasing their prices.
She talked to the city’s CivicPlus representative and told the person that an increase would be difficult for the city because the budgeting process for 2024 was finished. CivicPlus agreed to hold Warsaw’s price for 2024 and then increase it for 2025 so the city could budget the increase, Young explained.
“I feel like the increase is fair. They’ve been expanding what they offer with their services and expanding the services that are provided for our website and the different tools and modules associated with that, so they’ve seen a lot of growth. It’s just that it was bad timing for us on the part of the budget,” Young said.
Thallemer said, “I’m very satisfied with their work.”
The board approved the contract renewal for 2024 and 2025.
An agreement with Orange Marketing Group for 2024 social media management and boosting was approved at $1,300 per month, or $15,600 annual. Young said the contract was a continuation of the city’s agreement with the company formerly known as 212 Media.
“They help us with our management and also the boosting of our posts so that we can keep a consistent message on social media from the city,” Young said.
She said Orange Marketing Group did ask for a “small increase” for next year just because their costs are increasing with staffing, etc. “This is the first time they’ve asked for an increase as well.”
Thallemer said the city was really “blessed” to have Orange Marketing and that they did a “great job.” He said a lot of people use the city’s social media site for their information.
Whitney Olson, administrative assistant for the mayor, presented the annual maintenance agreement with CORE Mechanical for 2024-26. The cost is $5,900 per year.
She said there was a “slight” increase for cost of living and materials. “It’s not much though.”
“They’re here when we need them,” Thallemer stated.