1 FOURTH AMENDMENT
TO
CONSULTANT SERVICES AGREEMENT
This FOURTH AMENDMENT to Consultant Services Agreement (“FOURTH AMENDMENT”) is made and entered into as of April 2, 2024, by and between the City of Diamond Bar, a municipal corporation (“City”), and SCI Consulting Group, Inc., a California corporation, (herein referred to as the “Consultant”) with reference to the following:
A. The City and the Consultant entered into that certain Consultant Services Agreement dated as of May 5, 2020, which is incorporated herein by this reference (the “Original Agreement”);
B. The City and the Consultant entered into that certain First Amendment dated as of April 6, 2021, which is incorporated herein by this reference (“First Amendment”); C. The City and the Consultant entered into that certain Second Amendment dated as of September 21, 2021, which is incorporated herein by this reference (“Second Amendment”), which Second Amendment, First Amendment, and Original Agreement collectively are referred to herein as the "Agreement"; and D. The City and the Consultant entered into that certain Third Amendment dated as of April 4, 2023, which is incorporated herein by this reference (“Third Amendment”), which Third Amendment, Second Amendment, First Amendment, and Original Agreement collectively are referred to herein as the "Agreement"; and E. The City and the Consultant desire to amend the Agreement as provided herein.
NOW, THEREFORE, the parties agree as follows:
1. Defined Terms. Except as otherwise defined herein, all capitalized terms used herein shall have the meanings set forth for such terms in the Original Agreement.
2. Revised Scope of Services. The Scope of Services, Exhibit "A" to the Original Agreement, First Amendment, Second Amendment, and Third Amendment is hereby amended, modified and supplemented to include the services described in Exhibit "A" attached hereto and incorporated herein by this reference.
3. Term. The Term of the Original Agreement as set forth in Section 2 therein is from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2023. The First Amendment and Second Amendment did not change the Term. The Third Amendment extended the Term to June 30, 2024. This Fourth Amendment shall extend the Term up to and including June 30, 2025. 2 4. Compensation. The total not-to-exceed compensation set forth in Section 3 of the Original Agreement, was the sum of Fifty-two Thousand Two Hundred and Eight Dollars ($52,208). The First Amendment amended Section 3 of the Original Agreement to provide for a total not-to-exceed compensation in the sum of Sixty-Five Thousand Eight Hundred and Eight Dollars ($65,808). The Second Amendment amended Section 3 of the Agreement to provide for a total not-to-exceed compensation in the sum of Eighty Thousand Nine Hundred and Eight Dollars ($80,908). The Third Amendment amended Section 3 of the Agreement to provide for a total not-to-exceed compensation in the sum of Ninety-Nine Thousand Three Hundred and Four Dollars ($99,304).
The total not-to-exceed compensation of the Agreement is hereby amended to provide for an increase of Eighteen Thousand Nine Hundred and Fifteen Dollars ($18,915) so that the total not-to-exceed compensation, as amended by this Fourth Amendment, shall not exceed One Hundred Eighteen Thousand Two Hundred Nineteen Dollars ($118,219) without the prior authorization of the City.
5. Integration. This Fourth Amendment and all attachments hereto (if any) integrate all of the terms and conditions mentioned herein, and supersede all prior negotiations between the parties with respect hereto. This Fourth Amendment amends, as set forth herein, the Agreement and except as specifically amended hereby, the Agreement shall remain in full force and effect. To the extent that there is any conflict or inconsistency between the terms and provisions of this Fourth Amendment and the terms and provisions of the Agreement, the terms and provisions of this Fourth Amendment shall control.
IN WITNESS hereof, the parties enter into this Fourth Amendment on the year and day first above written.
[SIGNATURE PAGE FOLLOWS]
3 “CONSULTANT” “CITY”
SCI Consulting Group CITY OF DIAMOND BAR
*By: By:
Printed Name: Dan Fox, City Manager
itle:
*By: ATTEST:
Printed Name:
Title:
Kristina Santana, City Clerk
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
Omar Sandoval, City Attorney
*NOTE:If Consultant is a corporation, the City requires the following signature(s):
-- (1) the Chairman of the Board, the President or a Vice-President, AND (2) the Secretary, the Chief Financial Officer, the Treasurer, an Assistant Secretary or an Assistant Treasurer. If only one corporate officer exists or one corporate officer holds more than one corporate office, please so indicate. OR
-- The corporate officer named in a corporate resolution as authorized to enter into this Agreement. A copy of the corporate resolution, certified by the Secretary close in time to the execution of the Agreement, must be provided to the City.
John W. Bliss
President
John W. Bliss
Secretary
4 Exhibit “A”
February 6, 2024
Hal Ghafari, P.E.
Public Works Manager/Assistant City Engineer
City of Diamond Bar
Department of Public Works
21810 Copley Drive
Diamond Bar, California 91765
Re: Proposal for One-Year Extension of Assessment Engineering Services Agreement Dear Hal:
SCIConsultingGroup (“SCI”) is pleased to submit, for your review, our proposal for a one-year extension of our existing agreement to provide Assessment Engineering Services to the City of Diamond Bar (“City”). We have provided these services to the City since the Fiscal Year 2015-16 financial cycle, and we appreciate your consideration to continue providing these services.
Attached are the scope of services and fee schedule for your consideration.
The scope of services within this proposal includes the continued annual Engineer’s Reports and levy administration of three assessment districts:
Maintenance District 38: 18,449 parcels
Maintenance District 39: 1,246 parcels
Maintenance District 41: 554 parcels
Serving California public agencies since 1985, we clearly understand these special levies provide vital funding to the City and that the City is seeking to retain the services of a professional levy administration firm to ensure accurate, legally compliant and successful collection of these important revenues. The annual continuance of these special levies is not automatic. It involves important technical, procedural elements and legal requirements each year including the preparation of the annual Engineer’s Report. Our commitment is to provide these comprehensive services and minimize the time and resources of the City.
We respectfully offer the following for your consideration:
MOST COMPREHENSIVE LEVY ADMINISTRATION SCOPE The administration of the City’s special levies is a very important fiduciary responsibility that should entail significant effort to ensure that the special levies are collected accurately and defensibly. Through the process of designing and establishing many new post-Proposition 218 benefit assessments, we have gained unparalleled and comprehensive Proposition 218 data flow and compliance expertise.
EXISTING LEVY OPTIMIZATION EXPERTISE As noted, SCI Consulting Group’s primary expertise is the levy administration of assessments, fees, charges and special taxes for public agencies. With over 35 years of experience in this specialized field, we have never missed a levy submission deadline and have an unparalleled track record of finding additional revenues for agency levies that were previously administered by another firm. In fact, in nearly every case in which SCI has begun to administer special levies that were previously handled by another firm or public agency; we have often uncovered significant additional revenues due to incorrect previous amounts or missing parcels that should be subject to the levies.
BENEFIT ASSESSMENT SUCCESS AND EXPERTISE With over 35 years of experience in this specialized field, we are proud of our industry-leading record of success with assisting public agencies with increasing their revenues. For agency-wide revenue measures which include a survey, SCI has a success rate of over 91% with over 140 successful ballot measures.
COLLECTIVE LEGAL EXPERTISE SCI has also gained considerable and unmatched advantage from the collective input of most of the State’s leading Proposition 218 specialized attorneys with whom we worked on formations, and on the continued justification of the over 140 post-Proposition 218 agency-wide assessments we created and annually reauthorize.
KNOWLEDGE OF CITY OF DIAMOND BAR AND LOS ANGELES COUNTY We have worked extensively with the City of Diamond over the last 5 years, and throughout Los Angeles County including local cities and districts. Further, we currently provide, or have provided, consulting services to the following agencies within Los Angeles County:
Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District
San Gabriel Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District Cities of Avalon, Diamond Bar, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Palmdale, Temple City, and West Hollywood
Claremont, Culver City, Duarte, Glendale, and Las Virgenes School Districts UNMATCHED ABILITY TO HANDLE LARGE AREA/COMPLEX LEVIES SCI has successfully formed more agency-wide benefit assessments than all other firms in the State, combined. This is further evidence of our ability to form and administer large levy assessments. These include new assessments covering all parcels in Alameda, Orange, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties.
UNMATCHED TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES Every person in our firm, aside from our administrative staff, is a database expert. We have developed in-house, specialized programs to improve our levy administration services. We are also GIS and mapping experts. We invite you to compare, or better yet test our database and technical expertise with the staff from any other firm.
LOW OVERHEAD/LOW COST PROVIDER We understand that levy administration services must be provided cost-effectively, particularly to keep the City’s costs within budget constraints. For this reason, we maintain the lowest overhead and leanest structure in the industry. While other firms maintain multiple offices, hierarchical administration and much higher overhead costs, we operate more effectively and with much lower overhead out of one central office located in an economically favorable business area.
UNMATCHED RESPONSIVENESS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE We invite you to call our toll-free property owner assistance line at (800) 273-5167 and compare our level of service and responsiveness with any other firm. We answer calls directly with knowledgeable levy administration staff. We also provide the highest level of customer service and responsiveness for all our clients, including responding to all of our clients within the same day.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT SCI has reviewed the agreement template and agrees to all terms and conditions without exception.
STATEMENT CERTIFYING INSURANCE COVERAGE SCI certifies that the required insurance coverage will be obtained, and we understand said coverage is a prerequisite for entering into an agreement with the City.
We look forward to this opportunity to assist the City with this important project and stand ready to proceed. If selected, we intend to enter into a binding Agreement with the City as described in this RFP. This proposal is valid for 120 days. If you have any questions or require additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me. I can be reached at (707) 430-4300 or via email at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Edric Kwan, P.E.
Senior Vice President
____________________________________________________________________________________ CITY OF DIAMOND BAR Page 3 of 6
PROPOSAL FOR ONE-YEAR EXTENSION OF ASSESSMENT ENGINEERING SERVICES BY SCIConsultingGroup, FEBRUARY 2024
SCOPE OF SERVICES
This section outlines the comprehensive levy administration, assessment engineering services and other responsibilities SCI would perform throughout the fiscal year as the levy administrator for the City.
DEFINITIONS
City: City of Diamond Bar, its staff, legal counsel, and its City Council
Council: City of Diamond Bar City Council
Levies: Landscape Maintenance District Nos. 38, 39 and 41 SCI: SCI Consulting Group
Administration: Services related to the determination, levy, and collection of the assessments and other special levies
PRELIMINARY LEVY DATA ANALYSIS
1. Conduct project kickoff meeting with City staff, legal counsel, and other individuals as needed to establish timeline, assist with development of budgets, review parcel data, and accomplish other tasks related to administration of the levies.
2. Obtain current assessor data from the County Assessor and other sources for all parcels within the City and merge with SCI’s statewide internal parcel data.
3. Create a complete and highly accurate database including every parcel in each assessment district with the parcel attributes necessary for calculating the levies.
Research and obtain all property characteristics that are needed to properly calculate the correct levy amount, including, for instance, location, residential units, building square footage, land use, and land area.
4. Use the tax roll from the previous fiscal year and structure this historical levy submittal data so it can be used to help compare and analyze the levies.
5. On a parcel-by-parcel basis, calculate the specific levy amounts for each parcel based on February or March Assessor data.
6. Research changes in property data, usage, valuations, and levy changes from the previous year for all parcels within each District. Flag all parcels that require research to determine the appropriate levy.
7. In conjunction with the City, prepare budget worksheets for the assessments for City staff use. The budget workbook shall include projected expenditures provided by the City and projected revenues provided by SCI.
8. Review the budget and cost estimate with the City for the assessments and finalize the budget after incorporating City input.
9. Assist with the preparation of information that may be included in staff reports.
ASSESSMENT ENGINEERING AND ENGINEER’S REPORTS
1. Carefully evaluate all Proposition 218 developments and legal issues that may have bearing on the City’s assessment districts. Make recommendations for upgrades to improve compliance with Proposition 218 and other requirements. ____________________________________________________________________________________ CITY OF DIAMOND BAR Page 4 of 6
PROPOSAL FOR ONE-YEAR EXTENSION OF ASSESSMENT ENGINEERING SERVICES BY SCIConsultingGroup, FEBRUARY 2024
Review proposed upgrades with the City and other parties and incorporate comments as appropriate.
2. If significant changes are needed to the Engineer’s Reports:
a. Prepare comprehensive draft Preliminary Engineer’s Reports for the Assessment Districts including historical information, the basis of the assessment, the method of levy, the revenues raised and uses of the funds, and the assessment amount for each parcel. The Engineer’s Reports will be prepared by Edric Kwan, a licensed professional engineer certified in the State of California. b. Provide draft copies of the Preliminary Engineer’s Reports to the City and review the Reports with the City. Provide one electronic copy of the Preliminary Engineer’s Reports for the City. c. As necessary, incorporate comments and suggestions through the preliminary approval.
d. Provide electronic copies of the Final Engineer’s Reports with the City.
3. Prepare all needed resolutions and staff reports for the Assessments.
4. Prepare and assist with the publication of any notices for the continuation of the Assessments.
5. Attend and participate in Council meetings at which the Preliminary Engineer’s Reports and the Final Engineer’s Reports are approved and the public hearing is held, as needed.
DETERMINATION AND SUBMITTAL OF FINAL LEVIES AND QUALITY CONTROL
1. After the close of each fiscal year on June 30, create new levy rolls based upon the final lien roll Assessor data.
2. Identify all new or changed parcels that may require an updated or new levy calculation.
3. Research and update all property characteristics that may affect the levy amounts for each parcel.
4. Recalculate the final levies on a parcel-by-parcel basis.
5. Conduct over 50 checks and validation queries on each parcel to identify any parcels that may require additional research to confirm the appropriate levy amount.
6. Perform a comprehensive internal peer review of all levy calculations.
7. Perform a full management review and quality assurance audit of final levies.
8. Prepare the final levy roll for each levy listing parcel number, owner name, property address, and levy amount for each Assessor Parcel. Prepare electronic levy rolls sorted by Assessor Parcel Number and owner's name.
9. Meet County Tax Collector levy roll submission requirements and perform tasks needed to submit the special levies.
10. File approved levies with the County Tax Collector for inclusion of the levies upcoming fiscal year tax bills.
11. Verify and validate Tax Collector’s levy data prior to the printing of tax bills.
RESPONDING TO PUBLIC INQUIRIES AND APPEALS
1. Provide the County Tax Collector and the City with our property owner inquiry line at (800) 273-5167 so property owners can directly contact SCI Consulting ____________________________________________________________________________________ CITY OF DIAMOND BAR Page 5 of 6
PROPOSAL FOR ONE-YEAR EXTENSION OF ASSESSMENT ENGINEERING SERVICES BY SCIConsultingGroup, FEBRUARY 2024
Group throughout the fiscal year with questions regarding any specific levy administered by SCI.
2. Provide the County Tax Collector with a summary and overview of the levies for internal staff use, if necessary.
3. Throughout the fiscal year, research and, if necessary, revise any levies that property owners consider to be based upon incorrect information being used to apply the method of determination of the levy. (It should be noted that, due to our comprehensive levy validation procedures, actual revisions are very minimal, if any.)
4. If any property owners appeal a levy for their property, SCI shall research the levy amount and basis for appeal and shall make a recommendation and finding for the City. In the event that the City finds that a levy should be adjusted, SCI will adjust the levy according to the City’s final determination. (such appeals are very rare.)
5. For any property owner appeals, SCI will coordinate with the City and property owners as appropriate.
DELIVERABLES
1. Resolutions, Preliminary and Final Engineer’s Reports as needed, Auditor’s Reports, notices, draft staff reports, and other supporting documents for the continuation of the Assessments. Updated Assessment Boundary Diagrams and maps, as needed.
2. Assistance with the public meetings and hearings for the continuation of the Assessments.
3. Final levy rolls for inclusion on the fiscal year tax roll.
4. Forms and certifications required by the County Tax Collector.
5. Letter certifying confirmation of the final levy amounts.
____________________________________________________________________________________ CITY OF DIAMOND BAR Page 6 of 6
PROPOSAL FOR ONE-YEAR EXTENSION OF ASSESSMENT ENGINEERING SERVICES BY SCIConsultingGroup, FEBRUARY 2024
FEE SCHEDULE
Edric
Kwan
Kyle
Tankard
Senior Vice
President
Senior
Consultant
Support
Staff
Fully Loaded Hourly Rate for FY 2020‐21: $210 $155 $65 FY 2020-21 FY 2021-22 FY 2022-23 FY 2023-24 FY 2024-25
Annual Fee $15,920 $16,398 $16,890 $17,396 $17,915
Incidental Costs (n-t-e) $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 Proposed Not-to-Exceed Cost $16,920 $17,398 $17,890 $18,396 $18,915 Additional Information:
A. Annual Fees are proposed as fixed fees payable each fiscal year as noted below ‐ 50% of the annual fees shall be due August 15
‐ Remaining 50% shall be due on January 15
B. Incidental Expenses:
‐ Costs for property data, travel and other out‐of‐pocket expenses ‐ Shall be billed as incurred
‐ Total costs shall not exceed the amount shown without prior authorization from the City C. Scope includes attendance at 1 Council meeting
‐ Additional meetings shall be reimbursed at $1,050 per consultant per meeting, plus expenses D. Hourly Rates are increased 3% per year
E. Additional years are subject to a 3% annual cost increase Assigned staff:
Classification:
Fee Proposal
Resource Requirements Total Hours
Annual Assessment Engineering Services (FY20‐21) 16 76 12 104
SCI CONSULTING GROUP
CITY OF DIAMOND BAR
February 2024
Fee Proposal
One‐Year Extension for Assessment Engineering Services