Agenda - City of Santa Monica

Discussion
On September 10, 2012, to provide ample opportunity for competitive bidding, per
SMMC 2.24.070, staff issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for parking facilities and
transient occupancy tax auditing and other related services, and an RFP for Business
License Discovery 1 and Auditing Services. The RFPs aimed to identify one or more
agencies to provide auditing and discovery services to assist the City with realizing all of
the tax revenue due.
Vendor Selection
Both RFPs were posted on the City’s online bidding system. The deadline to respond to
both RFPs was October 11, 2012. Four companies responded to the RFPs, with
MuniServices being the only company to respond to all three audit services. Two
companies responded to Parking Facilities Tax Audit and Transient Tax Audit services;
one company responded only to Transient Occupancy Tax Audit services; and one
company only responded to Business License Tax Audit services.
A selection committee comprised of Finance and Housing and Economic Development
staff evaluated the proposals in compliance with Section 2.24.072 of the SMMC, taking
into consideration criteria including but not limited to price, the quality of the services
offered, the ability to perform the service, the capacity to perform the service, the
applicability of the proponent’s experience as it relates to the RFP’s scope of work, and
whether the respondent would have available resources to accomplish all elements of
the scope of services.
Based on the proposals submitted, MuniServices was found to be the firm that could
best provide the broad range of required services with experienced staff at a
competitive cost to the City. In particular, MuniServices met the RFP criteria through
their experience and resources. MuniServices has over thirty years of service history
1 Discovery is the process of identifying businesses that are operating without a business license and
using available tools to bring the business into compliance.
3