Discussion Regarding the Possibility of Outsourcing the Ramsey Resident Newsletter

The purpose of this discussion is to consider outsourcing the Ramsey Resident to a third party, PRIME Advertising, to make the process more efficient and cost-effective. 

The City Charter requires the City to publish a minimum of six Newsletters per calendar year. (Sec. 12.13)  Currently, the City publishes six, bi-monthly issues of the Ramsey Resident as well as one or two Ramsey Recyclers per year.  These newsletters are bulk mailed to every address in Ramsey, including all businesses, for a total of approximately 10,600 addresses.  The newsletter is currently printed by Countryside Printing with ads being sold by Scott Robinson of Universal Apparel.

History
The City first started publishing the Ramsey Resident in 1973. From '73-'82 the newsletter was mailed out using only black ink on colored paper. In 1983 we converted to newsprint. In 1984 and '85 we had a "tri-city" newsletter with the cities of Andover and Anoka. In '86 we converted back to one-color newspaper fold.

In 1991, Ramsey mailed a traditional, one-color newsletter and it remained that way until a redesign in 2005. At that time, we used the services of Audra Leonard Design to design a two-color newsletter.

In 2009, after another redesign by Audra Leonard Design, we converted to a full-color glossy newsletter with ads. These ads were outsourced by Scott Robinson.

In 2013, we converted two issues to black and white to save on postage by including them with resident utility bills.

In 2016, the City contracted Red Leaf to do a City-wide rebrand project.  Part of this project included redesigning the Ramsey Resident using our new marketing package.

Advantages
Some of the advantages of PRIME taking over the Ramsey Resident are:

1. Advanced electronic issue
2. Addition of Community Resource Guide to be used as a City of Ramsey/Economic Development marketing tool
3. Freshen design as needed; up to the City's discretion
4. Strengthen community branding
5. City Finance Department will no longer need to process invoicing for advertisements
6. Layout, printing, distribution and advertising is all integrated by one entity
7. Free up Administrative Clerk staff time to be utilized for records retention and other administrative duties

Advertising
Under the City's current model, advertisement sales are handled by Scott Robinson, an outside sales agent with the billing/invoicing for ads being done by the City's Finance Department.  Proceeds for these ads are split 50/50 between Scott Robinson and the City of Ramsey.  PRIME has indicated that they do not handle advertising exclusively.

Ramsey Resident Ad Sales Breakdown
 

Year	Number of Issues	Total Ad Sales	City Revenue
2017	5	$15,426.00	$  7,713.00
2018	6	$21,346.00	$10,673.00
2019	3	$  5,647.00	$  2,823.50

Articles and Content
Currently, each department head is responsible for supplying their own articles and photography to the Administrative Clerk. Department heads may choose to designate other support staff to supply Resident articles or, they will coordinate with the Communications and Events Coordinator to supply content. There would be no change to this process with the exception of the collection of content being coordinated by the Communications and Events Coordinator.

Cost
The 2018 net cost of producing the Ramsey Resident was $50,200. This figure includes advertising revenue, 184 hours of the Administrative Clerk's time but does not include any time spent by the Finance Department for processing invoices for ads.  Over the course of 15 years, the City has invested more than $4,000 in newsletter design alone. PRIME is proposing $4,286/per 4-page Recycler, $6,500 per 16-page newsletter and $9,350 per 24-page issue.  The estimated cost of outsourcing the newsletter to PRIME is approximately $48,186.  This figure is an estimate based on PRIME's pricing and layout configuration. 

Distribution
Currently, the Administrative Clerk coordinates the bulk mailing of the Ramsey Resident with the USPS. Each edition is distributed to approximately 10,600 homes. The City uses the Every Door Direct (EDD) numbers which are updated by the Administrative Clerk every two months in accordance with the USPS guidelines for bulk mailing.  If outsourced, the distribution under PRIME would not change.

Printing
Under the current model, the Administrative Clerk coordinates the printing of materials with Countryside Printing.  If outsourced, printing would be coordinated by PRIME.

Publication Dates
Under the current system, the Ramsey Resident is published in January, March, May, July, September and November, or bi-monthly. PRIME is proposing a quarterly newsletter to be published in January, April, July and October with a Community Resource Guide in the spring and one other publication (could be Ramsey Recycler, Parks & Recreation newsletter or other special section like Happy Days) in the fall.

Contract Term
PRIME is proposing a three year contract. The terms of the agreement will be reviewed and a longer-term contract may be reached in September of the third contract year.

Each party shall retain the right to terminate the agreement by giving a 90-day written notice to the other party.  The City would retain copyrights.

 Administrative Services Staffing
The Administrative Clerk is currently responsible for collecting articles and laying out the newsletter.  In 2018 the Administrative Clerk spent 184 hours on the newsletter. Staff proposes that the Administrative Clerk would spend more time on other duties within her job description, but especially records retention, which includes the ongoing task of scanning, retaining and destroying city records.  

Looking ahead, in December 2019 the part-time 20 hour per week City Clerk will retire.   To help offset some of the loss of staffing hours, the long-term succession plan currently in place allocates an additional 11 hours per week to another employee already working part-time in Administrative Services, but this is still a drop of 9 hours per week in the Administrative Services Department.  Opening up more time in the Administrative Clerk’s schedule would help offset some of this reduction. 

In response to the City Clerk going from full-time to part-time, there has been a shuffling of work duties in the Department.  The Administrative Clerk now plays a greater role in prepping and publishing Council agendas and managing staff direction.  In addition, while City elections come and go, there are added demands on staff for absentee voting and maintaining and updating the electronic poll pads.  The Administrative Clerk has been assigned as the technology expert when it comes to maintaining the city’s thirty-two poll pads. 

Outsourcing the newsletter to PRIME, on the proposed timeline, would be an excellent step in the right direction to help stabilize work flow in Administrative Services.

Staff recommends streamlining this process by outsourcing the newsletter to PRIME Advertising, thereby improving communications and becoming more efficient -- which are goals set forth in Ramsey's Strategic Plan.

Staff is recommending a start time of January 1, 2020. However, this would mean that PRIME's contract would need to take effect October 1, 2019. If the Council wishes to wait until January 1, 2020 to begin the contract, the first published issue by PRIME would be April 1, 2020, which would push back the Community Resource Guide.

The funding for the Ramsey Resident is a line item in the General Fund Budget.

Communications and Events Coordinator Megan Thorstad and;
Administrative Clerk Kathy Schmitz

For the City Council to direct statt to either outsource the Ramsey Resident newsletter to PRIME Advertising beginning October 1, 2019, with the first publication in January, 2020, or to keep the newsletter in-house.