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<br />I. BACKGROUND
<br />Incorporated in 1886, Santa Ana, a Charter City, established a Council -Manager form of
<br />government in 1952. The City Council is composed of seven members; the Mayor elected at
<br />large and six Council members elected by ward, who appoint the City Manager, City Attorney
<br />and Clerk of the Council. The City of Santa Ana (City) is a full -service City with a diverse
<br />population of approximately 335,000.
<br />The City's eleven agencies provide all the traditional municipal services, as well as water utility,
<br />library system, 20-acre zoo, City Jail, Police Department, and contracts with the Orange County
<br />Fire Authority for provision of fire services. The City employs 1,178 authorized full-time positions
<br />and has an annual citywide budget is $764.2 million, including the General Fund budget of $414
<br />million.
<br />The City of Santa Ana is located 10 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, 33 miles southeast of
<br />Los Angeles and 90 miles north of San Diego. The City, which is the county seat of Orange
<br />County, encompasses an area of approximately 27 square miles and is the 11th largest by
<br />population in California.
<br />Treasury & Customer Service Division: The Finance & Management Services Agency,
<br />Treasury & Customer Service Division ("Division"), is responsible for overseeing and providing
<br />revenue collection for a variety of City revenues, including but not limited to taxes, charges, fees,
<br />fines, deposits and reimbursements. In support of this mission, the Division uses a mix of internal
<br />staff, in-house custom software, external consultants/vendors to ensure that the City recovers all
<br />revenues that are due, including but not limited to: business license taxes, medicinal and
<br />commercial cannabis taxes, utility users' taxes, hotel visitors' taxes, tourism marketing district
<br />assessments, business improvement district charges, and proactive rental enforcement program
<br />("PREP") charges. These revenue programs are performed within the Division's Tax & Licensing
<br />Section ("Tax & Licensing").
<br />Tax & Licensing Program: In FY 2022-23, as part of the Tax & Licensing Program, the City
<br />averaged over 30,200 active business licenses annually and collected over $16,289,000 in
<br />general business license tax revenue, while at the same time averaging 99 medicinal and
<br />commercial cannabis business licenses annually with combined medical marijuana and
<br />commercial cannabis business license tax revenues of $22,280,000. A total of approximately
<br />$38 million annually in combined business license tax revenues, was fully processed utilizing the
<br />City's legacy business license tax software (Business Tax System or "BTS"), an internally
<br />developed and supported Active Server Pages (ASP.NET) application.
<br />As an adjunct to the Tax & Licensing Program, BTS also supports the Planning & Building
<br />Agency's PREP charges, averaging 7,250 accounts and generating approximately $860,000
<br />annually. This is currently accommodated via a BTS module handling PREP Customer Service
<br />Information and PREP Charge Fee billing. This module is scheduled for integration with the City's
<br />incoming Land Management System (LMS), Clariti. Lastly, in prior years, the BTS had an
<br />integrated Downtown Business Improvement District ("BID"), which functioned as a surtax
<br />charge and was subject to the general requirements of the Business License Tax Code and BTS
<br />software. Presently, the City does not have an active BID, but software procured through this
<br />RFP should be able to support such an element if it returns in the future.
<br />In addition to business license taxes, the Tax & Licensing Section receives monthly "trust tax"
<br />filings from 351 Utility Users' Tax (UUT) service providers generating revenues of $28,543,740
<br />annually; plus 34 Hotel Visitors' Tax (HVT) hotel/motel operators generating revenues of
<br />City of Santa Ana RFP No. 23-165 Page 3 of 196
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