Hogle-Ireland - Budget Study Session

Hogle-Ireland ANALYSIS PARKING FEES AND COLLECTION ALTERNATIVES FOR BEACH PARKING LOTS CITY OF SEAL BEACH PREPARED BY MIG-HOGLE IRELAND AUGUST 2013 INTRODUCTION This report has been prepared at the request of the City of Seal Beach. The purpose is
to analyze options to the current Agreement between the City of Seal Beach and ABM
Parking for the collection, counting and depositing of parking fees paid by users of the
three City-owned parking lots serving the beach.
This analysis considers the following:
1. Maintaining the current contract with ABM Parking Services.
2. Utilizing existing City employees to collect the fees.
3. Hiring new city staff to collect the fees.
4. Extending the City's contract with the City of Long Beach to collect the
fees in the lots currently serviced by ABM Parking Services.
5. Installation of new meter technology requiring use of credit/debit cards to
pay for parking.
6. Other alternatives which arose in the course of the analysis and study
7. Potential changes to the City's current parking fees for the Beach Parking
lots
This report is not intended to make a recommendation, but rather to simply provide
information for consideration by the City Staff and City Council in considering the City's
options for parking fee collection .
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In researching options for this analysis, MIG-Hogle Ireland obtained input on parking lot
administration from the cities of Riverside, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and
Laguna Beach. The discussion of their input is below.
In reviewing parking fees, MIG-Hogle Ireland consulted the cities of San Clemente,
Laguna Beach, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach . In addition, we consulted the
County of Orange and the State of California.
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CURRENT AGREEMENT Beach Parking Lots
The City currently has an agreement with ABM Parking Services for the collection of the
money deposited into the kiosks serving the beach parking lots. The Agreement was
originally executed in 2008, with the then AMPCO System Parking, now ABM Parking
Services.
This Agreement required ABM to install six pay stations in the three city­
owned lots which provide beach parking.
It also requires ABM to collect, bag and
deposit the parking fees into the City's account. To pay for ABM's services, the City
shares the gross revenues with ABM.
As required , ABM installed six pay stations in the three City-owned lots.
In the
agreement, an amortization schedule was provided for reimbursement of the cost for
the stations and their installation if the City terminated the agreement before March 1,
2012, which it did not. According to the Agreement, after this date, no reimbursement
for the pay stations is required.
Thus, if the City were to terminate this Agreement at
this time, the City maintains ownership and control of the pay stations.
Currently, the agreement with ABM states the City receives $200,000 of the first
$300,000, with ABM receiving the next $100 ,000. Revenues beyond $300,000 are split
65% to 35% between the City and ABM .
The City deposits its share of these funds into both its General Fund and its Tideland
Beach Fund. Based on a review of the City's General Ledger, the City has received
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$378,957 in 2010, $387,738 in 2011 and $397,722 in 2012 , the most recent three years
for which actual numbers are available
CITY REVENUES
ABM PARKING FEE COLLECTION AGREEMENT
General Fund
Tideland Beach
Fund
Total
2010
2011
2012
$220,478
$225,646
$230,463
$158,479
$162 ,092
$167,259
$378,957
$387,738
$397,722
MIG-Hogle Ireland was not authorized to contact ABM concerning this analysis. Thus,
the analysis of ABM 's share of the gross fees is an extrapolation based upon the
mathematical calculations detailed in the Agreement, Using these calculations, over
this same period as above, ABM was paid $196,361 in 2010, $201 ,090 in 2011 , and
$206,466 in 2012 .
ESTIMATED ABM INCOME
ABM PARKING FEE COLLECTION AGREEMENT
Base Income
35% of Fees in
Excess of $300,000
Total
2010
2011
2012
$100,000
$100,000
$100,000
$96,361
$101,090
$106,466
$196,361
$201 ,090
$206,466
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Had the City received all of the revenues from the parking fees , it would have had
revenues of $575 ,318 in 2010 , $588,828 in 2011 and $604 ,188 in 2012.
TOTAL ESTIMATED CITY REVENUE
WITH NO ABM PARKING FEE COLLECTION AGREEMENT
Total City Revenues
Estimated ABM
Revenues
Total
2010
201 1
2012
$378,957
$387 ,738
$397,722
$196,361
$201 ,090
$206,466
$575,318
$588,828
$604,188
The City contract with ABM anticipates approximately $601 ,000 in revenue will be
collected in the 2013 calendar year. Th is will result in the City receiving approximately '
$395,000 and ABM receiving an estimated $205,000 per the current contract. A similar
amount of gross receipts going to the City and ABM can be expected in future years.
Main Street Parking Lots
The City has an agreement with the City of Long Beach to collect the money from the
parking meters in the downtown parking lots on Main Street. Long Beach collects the
coins from the meters, delivers them to the City. City staff counts and bags the coins for
deposit into the appropriate City accounts.
It should be noted that Long Beach does not maintain the meters , whereas ABM
parking maintains the kiosks for the Beach lots. While there is no cost to the City to
maintain the kiosks , in FY 2012 , the City paid $386 to repair the meters in the Main
Street lots
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The cost for the Long Beach agreement is considerably less than the fee charged by
ABM Parking Services for the Beach parking lots; although ABM counts, bags and
deposits the money on behalf of the City and no staff time is required except for
administering the contract itself.
Between FY 2011 through FY 2013, the City averaged $105,608 per year in gross
revenues from these lots. The City of Long Beach charged an average of $12,336 per
year to college the cash from the meters. The City's net revenues averaged $93,272
per year.
DOWNTOWN PARKING METER
REVENUE
Parking
Meter
Revenue
Paid to
Long
Beach
Net
Revenue to
City
FY 2011
$99,289
$12,312
$86,977
FY 2012
$100,139
$12,393
$87,746
FY 2013
$117,396
$12,303
$105,093
TOTAL
$316,825
$37,008
$279,817
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OTHER CITIES' COLLECTION PRACTICES As noted in the Introduction, MIG-Hogle Ireland contacted four other cities, three of
which (Laguna Beach , Newport Beach and Huntington Beach) are beach cities having
public parking and one (Riverside) utilizes the same pay stations as does Seal Beach.
The following outlines how each handles their parking fee collections
City Of Laguna Beach
The City of Laguna Beach does not have beach front parking lots, but has numerous
small parking lots scattered through their downtown area.
The Public Works
Department's Parking Facilities Maintenance Division has three employees who
maintain 2,100 street parking meters (coin) and eight parking lots (meter kiosks). The
Division collects , counts, bags and deposits meter revenue daily.
employees to do work full time doing this.
However, these
Their duties also include installation,
maintenance, and replacement of meters , parking permit machines, and change
machines.
City Of Newport Beach
The City of Newport Beach only has one main parking lot with individual meter heads,
with the majority of its metered parking along city streets. The individual meter heads
accept coin and cards for payment. However, their meters include advertising for a pay­
by-mobile option through www.parkmobile.com (see below) that can reduce the amount
of staff time needed for collecting and processing cash from the individual meters. The
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maintenance and collections from the meters is done by a Parking Division within the
City Police Department.
City Of Huntington Beach
The City of Huntington Beach has multiple parking lots along Pacific Coast Highway,
totaling over 2,000 parking spaces. They have two parking lots, totaling 505 parking
spaces at the intersection of their Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway, which utilizes
the same parking meter kiosks as Seal Beach that takes coin , bills, and cards for
payment. Huntington Beach has a Beach Operations Division of the Police Department
that oversees the maintenance and collections of the meter kiosks. The City utilizes a
total of three staff members to make daily collections at each of the kiosks and to
process the cash and coin at their Finance Department.
Later this year, Huntington Beach intends to convert one of their lots (333 spaces) to
only accept credit cards for paying meter fees. The City indicated there is no cost for
the conversion. Huntington Beach uses the same meter technology as Seal Beach. All
that is required is to unclick some check boxes in the computer program for the meters
to disable the coin and dollar bill features. The City expects minimal costs; solely the
expense to have signs made and attached to the meters that reads "credit card only".
As discussed below, the City of Riverside surveyed the public, who found the card only
option unfavorable.
On the contrary, Huntington Beach found the visitors to their
beaches, especially a seasonal international crowd, prefer the quicker and easier
process of just using their credit/debit card . Huntington Beach sees the conversion of
the one lot to card only payments as a convenience for their visitors.
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City Of Riverside
The City of Riverside is not a beach city, but does have parking lots and street parking
that utilizes similar kiosk technology as Seal Beach. Their Parking Division is part of the
Public Works Department and handles only parking enforcement.
They have
contracted out collection of meter revenue to their parking facilities contractor, Central
Parking, which also operates the various parking structures in downtown Riverside.
Previously, the City of Riverside undertook a public survey about having card only
kiosks. Based on this survey, the public rejected the idea and preferred kiosks that
accepted coins, bills, and cards.
Central Parking , the City's vendor for collection of
parking meter fees , stated they use two Collection Clerks and one full-time Account
Specialist to handle the daily collection and counting from the meter kiosks. However,
they stated that the collection and counting of the coins and bills did not occupy any full­
time employees total work day or week and that Central Parking uses rotating shifts and
assigns other office and field duties to their employees.
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OTHER CITIES' BEACH PARKING FEES MIG-Hogle Ireland reviewed the beach parking fee schedules for other public agencies
in Orange County in order to compare the fees charged by the other agencies for beach
parking compared with those charged by Seal Beach.
Currently, the City of Seal Beach charges $3.00 for up to two hours up to a maximum of
$6.00 per day. The lots close at 10:00 PM.
Seal Beach is the only agency which
charges a two-hour minimum , but when considered as a $1.50 per hour rate , the City is
in the same range for fees as the other cities , as can be noted in the summaries below.
In terms of daily parking rates , Seal Beach is significantly below the other agencies.
While two agencies (San Clemente and the County) do not have a separate daily
charge , they total the hourly rates providing for a daily rate closer to or above other
cities. With a couple of exceptions, noted below, the others, including the State, charge
in the range of $15.00 per day. Three agencies (Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and
the State) charge higher fees for peak seasons than for non-peak seasons and two
(Newport Beach and Huntington Beach) have higher fees for specific holidays and
events.
At $100.00 for residents and $150.00 for non-residents, Seal Beach has one of the
higher annual fees of all of the public agencies. The only one higher is the State at
$195.00; however, the State's annual fee provides access to all state parks, and is not
limited to its park in Huntington Beach
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The following are summaries of the parking fees for the various public agencies along
with beach parking in Orange County.
San Clemente
• $1.50 per hour
• $50.00 annual fee for a city resident
• $100.00 annual fee for non-residents.
Orange County
• $1.00 per hour.
• $80.00 annual fee ; $50 .00 seniors and the disabled.
Laguna Beach
Laguna Beach maintains parking meters throughout its downtown , both on-street and in
structures .
• $1.25 to $2.25 per hour; the highest being those at the beach.
Newport Beach
Newport Beach has varying rates , depending on the lot as well as the type of vehicle . It
also has higher rates in some lots for peak holidays (Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor
Day.
The following are the rates for the various lots operated by Newport Beach:
Balboa Pier
• Cars: $1.50 per hour to max of $15.00 each 24-hour period.
• RV's (No Camping): $1.50 per hour to max of $15 .00 each 24-hour period
(Per Space Occupied).
• Buses:
$50.00--24 passengers or less.
$100 .00 --25 passengers or
more.
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• Motorcycles: $0.75 per hour to max of $7.50 each 24-hour period.
• Peak Holidays (Memorial Day, July 4th & Labor Day): $25.00 Flat Rate.
Corona Del Mar
• Cars: $15.00 .
• RV's (No Camping): $15.00 per space occupied.
• Buses: $50.00 -- 24 passengers or less. $100.00 -- 25 passengers or
more.
• Motorcycles: $7.50.
• Handicapped: $4 .00 weekday and $5.00 weekend.
• Peak Holidays (Memorial Day, July 4th & Labor Day): $25.00
Various Lots (19 th St, 26 th St, 59 th and Seashore , 61 st and Seashore, Balboa
Metered , Lot A (on Main St), Lot B (on Oceanfront) , Palm, Superior)
• Cars: $1.50 an hour
• 6 hour maximum parking
Ocean Front Lot
• Cars: $1.50 an hour
• Varying Maximum Time Limits
Huntington Beach - City Operated Parking
Similar to Newport Beach and Laguna Beach , Huntington Beach has varying rates
depending on where a visitor parks. Huntington Beach also has structured parking in its
Downtown, adjacent to the Beach.
Pier Parking (Surface Lots)
• $1.50 per hour
• $15.00 daily maximum
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•
$150.00 annual fee; $50.00 for seniors.
Main Promenade Parking Structure
• $1.00 per hour, up to two hours
• $1 .00 per 20 minutes after two hours
• $15.00 Non-peak daily maximum
• $5.00 flat rate after 9 PM
• $27.00 July 4 flat rate
• $17.00 peak season daily maximum (Memorial Day through Labor Day
• $20.00 maximum for Memorial Day and Labor Day and special events
Huntington State Beach
Peak Season (April 1 through September 30)
• $15.00 per day for automobiles; $14 .00 for seniors; $7.50 for disabled
• $30.00 per day for oversize vehicles; $28.00 for seniors; $22.50 for
disabled
Off Peak Season
• $10.00 per day for automobiles ; $9.00 for seniors; $5.00 for disabled
• $20.00 per day for oversize vehicles; $18.00 for seniors; $15.00 for
disabled
$195.00 Basic Annual Fee; the State also offers a variety of annual passes
depending on a variety of demographic factors.
The $195.00 annual fee and
other annual fees are applicable to any state park, including the State Beach at
Huntington
The chart on the following pages summarizes the fees of the various public agencies for
basic automobile parking. It does not incorporate all of the variables outlined above.
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COMPARISON OF BEACH PARKING FEES
BASIC AUTOMOBILE PARKING FEES
Hourly
Daily
Annually
$50.00 resident;
$1.50
San Clemente
N/A
$100.00 non­
resident
Orange County
$1.00
N/A
$80.00
Laguna Beach
2.25*
N/A
N/A
Newport Beach
$1.50
$15.00
N/A
$1.50
$15.00
N/A
N/A
$25.00
N/A
N/A
$15.00
N/A
N/A
$25.00
Various Lots
$1.50
$9.00**
Ocean Front Lot
$1.50
Balboa Pier
Peak Holidays
Corona Del Mar
Peak Holidays
Various
N/A
N/A
Time Limits
Huntington Beach (City)
Pier Surface Lots
$1.50
$15.00
$150.00
$1.00 per hr
Main Promenade Structure
-- 2 hrs;
$15.00 non
$1.00 per 20
peak
min after 2
$17.00 peak
N/A
hours
July 4th (flat rate)
N/A
$27.00
N/A
$20.00
N/A
$15.00
N/A
$1.00 per hr
-- 2 hrs;
Memorial Day, Labor Day, Events
$1.00 per 20
min after 2
hours
Municipal Lot
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COMPARISON OF BEACH PARKING FEES
BASIC AUTOMOBILE PARKING FEES
Hourly
Daily
Annually
Peak Season
N/A
$15.00
$195.00
Off-Peak Season
N/A
$10.00
$195.00
Huntington Beach (State)
$100.00 resident;
$1.50***
Seal Beach
$6.00****
$150.00 non­
resident
* Meters closest to beach
** Based on 6 hour maximum
*** Minimum 2 hour fee
=$3.00
**** Until 10 PM
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ALTERNATIVES As noted in the Introduction, this report was to consider various alternatives. These
included:
1. Maintaining the current contract with ABM Parking Services.
2. Utilizing existing City employees to collect the coins.
3. Hiring new city staff to collect the coins.
4. Extending the City's contract with the City of Long Beach to collect the coins
in the lots currently serviced by ABM Parking Services.
5. Installation of new meter technology requiring use of credit/debit cards to pay
for parking.
6. Other alternatives which arose in course of the analysis and study
The first, analyzing the cost of maintaining the current contract with ABM Parking
Services, is included above in the Section discussing the current agreement.
The
remaining alternatives are discussed in this Section .
.Utilizing Existing City Employees Or Retaining New Employees
With the exception of the City of Riverside, the other surveyed cities utilize City staff to
collect, count, bag and deposit the funds.
Depending upon the City, this is done
through the Police Department (Huntington Beach and Newport Beach) or the Public
Works Department (Laguna Beach).
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Those cities which use full time parking staff also assign them additional duties, such as
parking enforcement, maintenance of equipment, etc. , or the City is using individual
parking meters, as in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach , rather than kiosks only as
Seal Beach has, which requires significantly more employee time .
In each case, though , at least three employees are used. Two are assigned collection
responsibilities and one is assigned the task of counting , bagging and depositing. Two
are used for collections for security reasons , not because of the amount of work.
With Seal Beach having only six (6) kiosks , the amount of time to collect the fees would
be minimal. The more time consuming task is the counting and bagging of the money,
especially the coins.
The City's bank branch requires the coins to be rolled and
packaged. The City already counts , bags and deposits the coins and cash collected
from its downtown lots by the City of Long Beach. Handling the money collected from
the kiosks can simply be added to the responsibilities of those already counting and
handling the other meter fees.
Whether existing employees can be used or new employees need to be retained to
collect and process the parking fees is a decision the City staff and City Council needs
to make. A single employee (perhaps accompanied by a second when collecting from
the Kiosks for security purposes) would likely be sufficient. Assuming the work of the
three is equivalent to one full time employee , city staff estimates the cost of this level of
employee to be approximately $70,000, fully burdened , including salary and benefits.
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Expanding The City's Contract With The City Of Long Beach
Currently the City of Long Beach provides collection services for the City's meters in the
downtown parking lots. However, Long Beach only collects the fees and delivers the
coins and cash to the City. Seal Beach employees currently counts, bags and deposits
them.
Seal Beach pays Long Beach $12,300 per year for this service. The downtown lots use
individual parking meters. While MIG-Hogle Ireland was not authorized and did not ask
the City of Long Beach what their cost would be to add six (6) kiosks to their collection
responsibilities , this analysis assumes it would be a minimal amount.
There would ,
however, be additional time needed by City Staff for the extra coins and cash to be
counted, bagged and deposited.
However, even if Long Beach doubled their charges to Seal Beach , expanding the
contract and the additional time spent by current City employees to handle the money
once it is delivered to City Hall would be significantly below what the City is paying
under the ABM contract.
Installation Of New Meter Technology Requiring Use Of Credit or Debit
Cards To Pay For Parking
Both the cities of Riverside and Huntington Beach utilize the same kiosks as Seal
Beach. Both indicated that no new technology nor new kiosks are needed in order to
change over to a card-only system. This is handled within the computer programming
for the kiosks and requires only the "clicking" of a couple of boxes. The primary cost will
be to install signs and perhaps cover the coin/cash slots on the machines.
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It should be noted that Riverside received resistance from the public when they
suggested a credit/debit card only system. However, Huntington Beach's experience is
the opposite and it intends to make one of its beach parking lots card exclusive , while
the other beach lots will continue allowing for coins and cash.
The current Agreement states that the cost to ABM for the purchase and installation of
the existing kiosks were fully amortized by March 1, 2012. The Agreement states:
In the event that the City does not terminate this Agreement prior to March
1, 2012, the City will have no obligation to payor reimburse Consultant
any amount for the amortized value or cost of the six Pay Stations.
Based on this provision , this analysis assumes that if the City takes ownership of the
Pay Stations if it terminates the Agreement since the Pay Stations are installed on City­
owned property.
However, the Agreement does not indicate whether the ABM Parking Services is
required to also provide the City with the computer software wh ich controls the
operation of the Pay Stations. Since MIG-Hogle Ireland was not authorized to contact
ABM concerning this study, we therefore cannot say what the status of the software
would be if the City terminated the Agreement.
Other Alternatives
In undertaking the research for this analysis, MIG-Hogle Ireland was informed about the
use of the Internet to pay parking fees.
Newport Beach utilizes this system as an
option , as does the City of Long Beach in its Downtown.
Both use the website
www.parkmobile .com.
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Through this service, customers ca n pay for parking with their cell phone using mobile
applications for the iPhone, Android , Windows , and Blackberry smart phones.
To use system , customers reg ister for free online or download the mobile app to their
phones.
Once registered , they can use the mobile app , the internet, or a toll free
number to pay for parking . Customers can also select the option to receive alerts and
reminders 15 minutes prior to expiration of their parking session.
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CONCLUSIONS Based upon the research and analysis done, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The City of Seal Beach is currently spending approximately $200,000 per
year under its Agreement with ABM Parking Services to collect, count, bag
and deposit the parking fees paid through six kiosks.
If the current
Agreement were terminated , the City could reclaim this money for its own
use. The net revenues to the City will depend on which option the City
chooses to replace the existing vendor.
2. If the City chooses to terminate the Agreement, the Agreement implies (but
does not state) that the City retains ownership of the kiosks. A significant
question, however, is whether the City would have access to the computer
software which controls the kiosks. This question is one which would need
to be raised in discussions with ABM, who were not consulted by MIG­
Hogle Ireland for this analysis.
3. Other than the City of Riverside which has extensive paid parking
throughout its downtown as well as parking structures which have parking
attendants, no other city MIG-Hogle Ireland spoke with uses a service to
collect its parking fees.
Riverside uses Central Parking as their vendor,
which staffs both their parking structures as well as collects the on-street
parking fees.
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4. While the City of Long Beach was not consulted about its contract with
Seal Beach to collect from the Downtown meters as part of this analysis, if
the City does not wish to use its own staff, this analysis assumes that the
City could amend its contract with the City of Long Beach and use their
staff to collect from the kiosks when they collect from the Downtown
meters. However, since Long Beach only collects the coins and cash and
delivers it to Seal Beach for counting and depositing, it is assumed the
same arrangement would continue if the kiosks were added to long
Beach's contract and thus additional work would be added to the seal
Beach staff currently handling the counting , bagging and depositing of the
money from the Downtown meters.
Even with this, significant additional cost is not expected.
5. If the City chooses to collect the fees from the kiosks on its own, it can
anticipate requiring two employees to collect these fees.
However, the
time involved would be minimal and can be handled by existing staff.
The
current staff which counts the money from the Downtown lots (currently
collected by the City of Long Beach), would have the additional duties of
counting the kiosk money as well.
6. While no employee is expected to be assigned full time to this task, if the
City chooses to collect from the kiosks and process the fees on its own, it is
anticipated that the total additional work would be the equivalent of a full
time employee. The City staff estimates a full time equivalent employee
would cost approximately $70,000 per year, fully burdened with salary and
benefits. If current employees are used, however, no additional personnel
costs would be anticipated.
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7. If the City chooses to change its current kiosks to accept only credit/debit
card in order to eliminate the cost of collecting, bagging and depositing the
funds, this can be done at a minimal cost, assuming the City is able to
include the current software which operates the kiosks if the Agreement is
cancelled.
If the City must obtain its own software, this additional cost
needs to be considered.
If the change-over is done, however, the City may receive negative public
reaction to this, as the City of Riverside found in its survey.
8. In terms of parking fees, the City is below other public agencies in Orange
County in its maximum daily parking fees, at $6.00 per day compared to a
more typical $15.00 per day. The City may wish to consider raising its daily
rate to a level closer to $15.00 per day. The City may also wish to follow
the example of Newport Beach and the City of Huntington Beach in
charging a premium for peak season parking versus non-peak season
parking, as well as charging more for specific holidays or holiday
weekends.
If the City wishes to stay in the same price range for hourly and annual
parking fees as the other cities, no change in the existing fee structure is
needed.
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