09-12-2001 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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ll Key Elements of the Joint Powers Agreement • Timing — Equipment and support will be in place to allow Maplewood, New Brighton, Roseville and White Bear Lake to conduct 2001 elections on the new equipment. All other cities will implement in 2002. • Equipment Financing — The County provides upfront financing for tabulators and system hardware and software acquired in 2001 and 2002. The Cities reimburse the County for these costs either through a lump sum payment in 2002 or, if a city so chooses, in five equal yearly installments commencing in 2002. Cities that pay over time also reimburse the county for any debt issuance costs or interest incurred by the County. • Backup tabulators — The County acquires backup tabulators for the entire county thereby reducing the total number of tabulators needed. The County works with the cities to make sure that adequate backups are in place on Election Day. The current estimate is that backups will make up 10% of the total number of tabulators. • Cost Allocation — A City will pay for the tabulators requested by that City. Special requests will be billed to the requesting city. The costs for administrative hardware and software, backup tabulators, training and other implementation services, tabulator maintenance, software service agreement and other post - implementation services will all be allocated to cities based on the number of tabulators requested by that city relative to the total number of tabulators requested by all cities. Consequently, costs are allocated based more on service demand. This was the method selected by the County Board and favored by most city managers as an alternative to the value -based allocation that would occur if the county paid for the costs and which would result in tax burdens disproportionate to services received. Costs will be reduced for all cities if state or federal financing is secured to buy down the costs of the project. • Ownership — The cities will own the tabulators that they request, once they are paid for. The County will own the backup tabulators and system hardware and software. • Tabulator Maintenance — Before the expiration of the warranty, the County, with input from the cities, will determine whether ongoing maintenance should be provided on a fixed fee or a time and materials basis. This decision applies to all tabulators in the County. • Ballot Generation — The County agrees to provide ballot generation services for all elections (previously this only applied to even year elections or to the City of St. Paul due to the contract the County has with that city). The County also agrees to accumulate election results for all elections and to return an election results electronic data file or report based on the city's needs. • Term — The agreement is for ten years. Steps that have already been taken • Tabulators and administrative hardware and software have been ordered and delivered in order to conduct elections this Fall in Maplewood, New Brighton, Roseville and White Bear Lake on Global election equipment. • Operator training in tabulator functionality, testing and election operations has occurred for county and city staff that have elections this Fall. Additional operator training is scheduled for all cities in August. • County staff have attended training in the GEMS election software used for generating ballots, programming memory cards and accumulating and displaying election results. • Election judge training on the new equipment is scheduled in August. • Some cities have conducted new equipment demonstrations using famous names ballots at local community events. Page 24