The City Attorney recommends that City Council approve a third amendment to Ordinance No. 2007-0821 to provide for additional funding. Under this contract, the contractor assists the City with the publication of the current City Code, which was adopted in 1985 and contains ordinances that are of a permanent nature and of public interest. The City Code is currently published in two loose leaf volumes that have been kept current with the addition of supplements since its adoption. In addition, the contractor, on behalf of the City, publishes the electronic version of the City Code on the Internet to provide easy access to City residents. The current contract is for a three year term, automatically renews year to year and provides that each party may cancel upon sixty days written notice. The contract is currently in its third automatic renewal year.
Approximately two hundred copies of the two loose leaf volumes have been distributed to various offices of City government for use by employees and to some of the Houston Public Library branches for use by the public. There are also a number of private subscribers, such as law firms and universities, that have purchased sets and pay annual subscription fees for the supplements.
The maximum contract amount is being raised to reflect the costs of updating the City Code with supplements, which is subject to substantial fluctuation because the fees are based on the actual number of pages of ordinance text that must be amended or added, which is a function of the number of ordinances adopted by City Council. Over the last three calendar years, supplementation costs have averaged over $27,000 per year. Therefore, we anticipate the additional $100,000 authorized by this ordinance will be enough to fund services through calendar year 2020.