If you think your phone bill is bad, what would you say to a bill of more than $116,000 a month?

How about, „We got a deal.“ That’s what city officials told the City Council Tuesday night.

That is what the city will pay Verizon California Inc. for local telephone and data transmission services under an agreement approved Tuesday by the City Council. But the agreement actually is a deal, city officials say, saving more than $800,000 a year, or $67,000 a month.

„This has been a focus, to reduce our telecom costs,“ said Curtis Tani, director of Technology Services. „With this agreement, we’ve done that. We were paying $2.2 million annually for these services.“

The new contract is for $1.4 million, with an overage of no more than $100,000 over the next year. That covers local service for the city’s more than 6,000 telephones as well as T-1, DSL and other forms of data transmission.

Under the new three-year agreement, Verizon is reducing its overall rates by about 35%. The reduction came after a bidding process that resulted in five proposals. Tani said Verizon was the lowest bidder by a significant amount.

In May 1999, the city signed a contract with GTE California Inc., Verizon’s predecessor, to provide local telephone service, including data communications and support service for all of the line services. In February 2001, the Port of Long Beach was added to the contract.

Verizon’s current contract runs through June 30, 2005. But, Tani said, the new rates will be phased in beginning five days after the contract amendment takes place, allowing savings to start accruing this year.

Long Beach also uses Verizon for its long distance service, and won a 25% reduction in that contract when it was renegotiated this year. The city spends about $100,000 a year on long distance.

Cell phone service is split between Nextel and Verizon Wireless, which is a separate company from Verizon. Tani said the city spends about $625,000 a year on those contracts.

That service is more competitive, Tani said, and the amount of savings in negotiations last month was only about 8%. But in these tight budget times, every bit of savings count, Tani said.

The contract amendment passed unanimously.