Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation authorizes the Director of Development to enter into contract with the Economic & Community Development Institute (ECDI) for loan servicing in an amount up to $43,825; authorizes the contract to have a start date of March 1, 2019; and waives Chapter 329 of Columbus City Code.
ECDI has been a long time partner with the Department of Development in administering the city’s Revolving Loan Fund program. The Revolving Loan Fund program provided micro and small businesses startup capital and other assistance to begin a new business or grow an existing business. Under this contract, ECDI will continue to service the remaining loans in its portfolio through the contract period.
The department is in the process of ending the program and it has taken the department more time than expected to determine who would service the remaining loans. After much deliberation, the department desires that ECDI continue servicing the loans they initiated. The prior contract expired on February 28, 2019, and ECDI has been servicing loans since that time, thus the request to have the contract start March 1, 2019. This contract is not a modification of the prior contracts because the scope of services of the prior contract include loan initiation, underwriting, and other services, while this contract is only for loan servicing, and there has been a change in fee structure. Because of the complexity of changing loan servicers mid-stream and because the department will be posting an RFP for department-wide loan servicing services later in 2019 for a new contract in 2020, the department requests the approval to waive Chapter 329 of Columbus City Code and enter into a contract directly with ECDI. Depending upon the outcome of the upcoming RFP effort, the department may continue to have ECDI service the remaining loans and if so, will request Council approval to modify this loan servicing contract in 2020.
Emergency action is request in order to ...
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