Report Prepared by: Jeff Bennyhoff, Director of Information Technology
Title
SUBJECT: Approval to Waive the Competitive Bidding Requirement for Professional Services and Award Granicus a Contract for Website Redesign and Content Review Services in an Amount not to Exceed $222,061
REPORT IN BRIEF
Considers approving to waive the City’s competitive bidding requirements of Professional Services pursuant to Merced Municipal Code Section 3.04.210 and approving the Professional Services Agreement with Granicus for website redesign and content review services in the amount not to exceed $222,061.
RECOMMENDATION
City Council - Adopt a motion:
A. Waiving the City’s competitive bidding requirement as permitted by Merced Municipal Code Section 3.04.210 for Professional Services; and,
B. Approving a Professional Services Agreement with Granicus for website redesign in the amount not to exceed $222,061; and,
C. Authorizing the City Manager to execute the necessary documents or contracts; and,
D. Authorizing the Finance Officer to make the necessary budget adjustments.
Body
ALTERNATIVES
1. Authorize agreement as recommended; or,
2. Refer to staff for further evaluation; or,
3. Deny.
AUTHORITY
Charter of the City of Merced, Section 200 and Merced Municipal Code Section 3.04
CITY COUNCIL PRIORITIES
As provided for in the 2023-24 Adopted Budget.
DISCUSSION
In 2015 the City entered into an agreement with Civica, now Granicus, for a new website and website content management system. In 2018, a minor web site re-design and website content management system update was performed by Granicus. The City is approaching ten years from when a major re-design and complete content review of its website was last performed.
The website content management system allows each department to update and maintain their own content on their respective web pages. However, due to competing priorities and limited resources, departments find it challenging to allocate time to update the website regularly. This lack of time for updates has resulted in a certain amount of outdated information on the site, potentially leading to miscommunications with the public.
Granicus provides a range of technology solutions tailored for government agencies. The City employs multiple Granicus products to support our operations, including our public and internal websites, agenda management, boards and commissions management, live video streaming, as well as our resident communications tools such as SubscribeMerced and EngageMerced. Together these products form a cohesive, integrated solution.
Granicus has a proven track record of successful collaborations with government entities, offering confidence in their ability to deliver top-quality solutions that fulfill the specific requirements of government website design. As an example, Granicus is aware of the new Department of Justice American with Disabilities Act requirement for local government websites that will be added to the federal register in May of 2024, and the proposed California legislative bill AB1757 for website accessibility.
While the Granicus website software is modern, robust and feature-rich, department staff don’t have the time to keep the content up to date. The City requires professional services for content cleanup and re-design services to bring the City’s website up-to-date using our existing website software solution. As Granicus is the developer of this software they will have an unique expertise on updating content across the entire website in the most effective manner. The professional services agreement with Granicus would provide the following services to the City.
1: Create a new website design to update the branding, appearance, and user experience of the website.
2: Department based content planning, discovery, and review. Granicus will meet with each department to review and audit all departmental webpage content. They will assist departments in added content, archiving old and less relevant content, and adding missing content. They will also perform a Flesh-Kincaid readability tests on the content of each web page.
3: Change the City of Merced website domain to conform to AB1637 that requires local agencies to use a “.gov” domain. The new website will be www.cityofmerced.gov upon completion of the project. Before the new website is launched, a public outreach campaign will take place to inform residents about the transitions to the new www.cityofmerced.gov site.
4: Maintain the www.cityofmerced.org website and ensure when residents access any old links, documents, records, and services they are redirected to the corresponding record located at www.cityofmerced.gov
5: Migrate all content from the old website to the new website.
6: Train staff on new components and technologies with the new website, including community engagement platform integration with Engage Merced.
The duration of this project is anticipated to be 12 months as there is a large amount of work to be performed in this engagement across all City departments. At project completion, content of the site should be up to date with the most current City records. However, this project will not completely resolve the underlying issues of competing project priorities and limited staff time across all departments to dedicate to keep the web site content up to date on a go forward basis.
The Information Technology Department is requesting that the Council waive the competitive bidding requirements, as outlined in municipal code section 3.04.210, which exempts professional services from competitive bidding. This waiver will enable Granicus to provide the professional services for the website upgrade.
IMPACT ON CITY RESOURCES
The website update is approved in the FY23/24 Council Adopted budget.
ATTACHMENTS
1. Professional Services Agreement with Granicus, LLC