CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT
Meeting: May 20, 2025
Subject
OpenGov renewal contract for budgeting, performance, communications, and reporting software Recommended Action
Authorize the City Manager to execute an agreement with OpenGov, Inc. to renew a contract for budgeting, performance, communications, and reporting software for a total amount of $222,401 over three years.
Executive Summary
Since 2014, Cupertino has partnered with OpenGov software for budgeting, performance, communications, and reporting. The proposed agreement ensures uninterrupted services and aligns all product billing cycles with the City’s fiscal year. It also includes a flexible termination clause to accommodate future integration with the City’s upcoming enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This renewal supports the City Council’s goals for public engagement, fiscal strategy, and operational transparency. Staff recommends that the City Council authorize the City Manager to execute a three-year renewal agreement with OpenGov, Inc. totaling $222,401 for continued access to its cloud-based budgeting, performance, communications, and reporting software.
Background
OpenGov Overview
OpenGov is an integrated cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) solution for budgeting, performance, communications, and reporting. Founded in 2012, OpenGov has over 1,000 customers in the nation across cities, counties, state agencies, special districts, and higher education. Based in Redwood City, OpenGov has over 230 customers in California alone including Menlo Park, San Jose, Palo Alto, Milpitas, Campbell, Portola Valley, Redwood City, and many others in the Bay Area.
OpenGov and Cupertino History
In 2014, the City wanted to be able to provide both the public and City Council with on-demand access to accurate financial information. After evaluating multiple vendors, the City partnered with OpenGov to launch a transparency portal. Since then, the City has implemented additional OpenGov products, as OpenGov offers the only integrated solution for reporting, budgeting, workforce planning, communications, and citizen engagement. The City’s use of OpenGov products has helped the City achieve the following strategic goals:
Accuracy and Collaboration
Timeliness and Efficiency
Transparency
Community Engagement
The following provides a brief timeline of the City’s use of OpenGov products:
November 2014
The City implemented an OpenGov transparency portal to provide both the public and City Council with on-demand access to financial information.
September 2016
The City entered into a four-year contract for both Reporting and Transparency and Budgeting and Planning. The City added the Budgeting and Planning module to improve collaboration, increase efficiency, and give staff on-demand access to the budget.
December 2016
The City added Integrations to automatically synchronize data with the City’s enterprise resource planning system.
January 2019
The City added Workforce Planning to help the City calculate personnel costs efficiently and accurately.
September 2019
The City added Open Town Hall to help the City to gather feedback from the public.
December 2019
The City added Stories to add narrative context to budget and financial data.
OpenGov Products Overview
The goal of using OpenGov products is to increase collaboration, efficiency, transparency, and engagement. The following section provides a brief overview of the City’s OpenGov products and how they help the City achieve its goals.
Reporting and Transparency Platform
Reporting and Analytics
The Reporting and Analytics module allows the City to create and share financial and non-financial data with staff, residents, and City Council. The public-facing transparency portal can be accessed at cupertino.gov/opengov. Since the launch of the transparency portal, the City has received positive feedback from staff, residents, and City Council regarding the platform’s ease of use and transparency. In 2016, the City earned a First Place Best of OpenGov award for its use of OpenGov for reporting.
Integrations
OpenGov integrates directly with the City’s New World enterprise resource planning system, which contains all of the City’s financial and human resources data. The integration increases reporting timeliness and efficiency, while improving data quality and integrity.
Stories and Dashboards
The Stories module enables the City to easily create and share content that combines data with images, maps, and narrative context. Over the past year, the City has used the Stories module to create interactive quarterly financial reports and an interactive Budget at a Glance. Over the next year, City plans to use Stories to provide more narrative context around the City’s financial information.
Open Town Hall
The Open Town Hall module enables the City to broaden citizen engagement. The City has used Open Town Hall to gather public feedback with digital surveys and budget simulations.
Budgeting and Planning Platform
Operating Budgets and Capital Planning
The Budgeting and Planning platform enables the City to build budgets with greater collaboration, efficiency, and accuracy. The platform enables a collaborative, coordinated budget process by offering a central place for departments to submit proposals, budget teams to review submissions, and management to present the budget to City Council. The City has been using this product to build the budget since 2017.
Workforce Planning
The Workforce Planning module allows the City to calculate personnel costs efficiently and accurately. Staff can calculate the fully burdened labor costs of an individual or overall workforce, perform scenario analysis to inform budget decisions, and request new positions using accurate, updated costs.
OpenGov Contract
The City’s first contract with OpenGov began on September 1, 2016 and ended on September 1, 2020. The first contract amendment totaled $318,520 for the five-year period of September 1, 2020 through June 30, 2025.
The recommended new contract with OpenGov would renew all of the City’s products until June 30, 2028, and align the billing dates for all products with the start of the fiscal year. The contract would include the following products:
Reporting and Transparency
Reporting and Analytics
Integration
Stories and Dashboards
Open Town Hall
Budgeting and Planning
Operating Budgets
Capital Planning
Workforce Planning
Next Steps
If the contract is renewed, the City will be able to continue leveraging OpenGov products to increase collaboration, efficiency, transparency, and engagement. The City plans to keep residents, Council, and staff informed and engaged through increased use of reports, stories, and surveys.
If the contract is not renewed, staff would be required to revert to manually preparing the City’s budget using Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and Word. This approach is time-consuming, less effective and efficient, may require additional staffing resources, would severely impact staff’s ability to complete major items on the Budget Implementation Action Plan on time, and would lack the interactive tools and visualizations that enhance accessibility and understanding for the community, such as the transparency portal.
With the ERP replacement underway, certain functions currently supported by this platform may eventually be integrated into the new system. To maintain flexibility, the proposed three-year agreement includes a termination clause that allows the City to scale down or exit early if specific modules become redundant.
Reasons for Recommendation and Available Options
The recommended action is to authorize the City Manager to execute an agreement with OpenGov, Inc. to renew a contract for budgeting, performance, communications, and reporting software for a total amount of $222,401 over three years.
Sustainability Impact
No sustainability impact.
Fiscal Impact
The total cost of the three-year contract is $222,401 as shown below. The FY 2025-26 amount is currently budgeted in Innovation Technology budget unit 100-32-308.
Fiscal Year
Billing Date
Term
Amount
FY 2025-26
July 1, 2025
Annual
$70,547
FY 2026-27
July 1, 2026
Annual
$74,075
FY 2027-28
July 1, 2027
Annual
$77,779
Total
$222,401
City Work Program (CWP) Item/Description
None.
Council Goal:
Public Engagement and Transparency and Fiscal Strategy
California Environmental Quality Act
No California Environmental Quality Act impact.
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Prepared by: Toni Oasay-Anderson, Acting Budget Manager Reviewed by: Kristina Alfaro, Director of Administrative Services Teri Gerhardt, Chief Technology Officer
Floy Andrews, City Attorney
Approved for Submission by: Tina Kapoor, Acting City Manager Attachments:
A – Three-year Renewal Agreement through June 30, 2028
B – Previous Renewal Agreement through June 30, 2025