REPORT/RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
OF THE COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO
AND RECORD OF ACTION
October 27, 2020
FROM
BOB PAGE, Registrar of Voters, Registrar of Voters
SUBJECT
Title
Amendment to Agreement with Toppan Merrill, LLC
End
RECOMMENDATION(S)
Recommendation
Approve Amendment No. 6 to Agreement No. 13-1051 with Toppan Merrill, LLC for printing and mailing services of Voter Information Guides, extending the contract one year for a new total period of January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2021; and increasing the contract by $1,650,000 from $7,140,111 to an amount not to exceed $8,790,111.
(Presenter: Bob Page, Registrar of Voters, 387-2100)
Body
COUNTY AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Operate in a Fiscally-Responsible and Business-Like Manner.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
Approval of this item will not result in the use of additional Discretionary General Funding (Net County Cost). The one-time cost will be funded within the Registrar of Voters’ current allocation of Discretionary General Funding. Adequate appropriation and revenue have been included in the Registrar of Voters’ 2020-21 budget and will be included in the 2021-22 recommended budget.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On July 28, 2020 (Items No. 75 and 76), the Board adopted two ordinances, Ordinance No. 4389 related to revision of the County Charter (Measure J) and Ordinance No. 4390 entitled “The San Bernardino County Supervisor Compensation Reduction and Term Limits Initiative" (Measure K), which would amend portions of the County Charter. The Board also directed ROV to print the full text of each County Charter proposal in the Voter Information Guide (VIG) mailed to all voters in the county.
The Impartial Analysis, Arguments and Rebuttals, and the full text of Measures J and K require 72 VIG pages. This increased page count would have made the VIGs so large that Toppan Merrill, LLC (Merrill) advised it would have to manually bind the VIGs, increasing the time and cost for each book. After discussions with the vendor about alternatives, ROV chose to print and mail a separate Supplemental VIG containing only Measures J and K to registered voters. This option cost about $300,000 less than producing a larger single VIG and allowed both the VIG and Supplemental VIG to be mailed before ballots started mailing on October 5.
The recommended amendment will increase the Agreement amount to pay for the printing and mailing of the additional VIG.
PROCUREMENT
On December 17, 2013 (Item No. 72), as the result of a competitive procurement, the Board approved Agreement No. 13-1051 with Merrill for the printing and mailing services of voter information guides, in an amount not to exceed $2,668,844 for the period of January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2016, with the option to extend two additional one-year periods. The Board has approved five contract amendments:
• December 20, 2016 (Item No. 82), exercising the first renewal option to extend the contract through December 31, 2017 and increasing the total amount not to exceed $3,168,844
• December 19, 2017 (Item No. 61), exercising the second renewal option to extend the contract through December 31, 2018 and increasing the total amount not to exceed $4,262,220;
• September 25, 2018 (Item No. 43), extending the contract through December 31, 2019, and increasing the total amount not to exceed $4,483,111; and
• December 18, 2018 (Item No. 68), revising the pricing for voter information guide printing and mailing services to account for a greater number of pages and increasing the total amount not to exceed $4,903,111.
• September 10, 2019 (Item No. 59), extending the contract through December 31, 2020 and increasing the total amount not to exceed $7,140,111.
ROV is working with the Purchasing Agent to release a Request for Proposal (RFP) in January 2021 for printing and mailing services of the Voter Information Guide.
REVIEW BY OTHERS
This item has been reviewed by County Counsel (Jolena Grider, Deputy County Counsel, 387-4310) on October 1, 2020; Purchasing Department (Michelle Churchill, Supervisor Buyer, 387-2070) on October 5, 2020; Finance (Elias Duenas, Finance Analyst, 387-4052) on October 8, 2020; and County Finance and Administration (Robert Saldana, Deputy Executive Officer, 387-5423) on October 13, 2020.