City of Gonzales
CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT
STAFF REPORT
TO: Honorable Mayor Rios and City Council
DATE: April 3, 2023
FROM: Trevin Barber, City Manager
THROUGH: Trevin W. Barber, City Manager
SUBJECT: Authorize the City Manager to Execute an Agreement for Budget and Planning Software with OpenGov (Cost: $69,078 Over Three Fiscal Years)
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the City Manager, or his designees, to execute an agreement for budget and planning software with OpenGov for a total cost of $69,078 over three fiscal years, and make minor modifications as appropriate thereto, on behalf of the City.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
While the new enterprise resource planning system is anticipated to provide much needed upgrades for accounting functions, payroll, and resource planning efforts, staff is of the opinion that it will not meet our needs for financial analysis, forecasting, and budgeting. Staff has identified a budgeting and financial analysis software solution, OpenGov, that will complement the City’s efforts to digitalize and streamline operations—helping staff move beyond paper/excel and reducing task hours by 50%. With less time spent on managing data, staff can focus their efforts on matters of strategic priority, such as advancing the community center, annexations, and special projects.
BACKGROUND
The City of Gonzales has used the Tyler Technologies enterprise resource planning system called Fund Balance for more than three decades. The City Council recently approved an agreement with Tyler Technologies to upgrade the City’s enterprise resource planning system with their newer product called ERP Pro 10 (formerly known as Incode 10). Before the City can transition to ERP Pro 10, the City must first upgrade the City’s on premise servers. Such an upgrade has been delayed due to supply shortages and is not anticipated until June. After new server equipment is installed, the city anticipates a development lead time of six months to implement ERP Pro 10.
AGENDA
ITEM
9 While the new enterprise resource planning system is anticipated to provide much needed upgrades for accounting functions, payroll, and resource planning efforts, staff is of the opinion that it will not meet our financial analysis, forecasting, and budgeting needs entirely. The process to use the City’s current and future enterprise resource planning system for financial reporting and budgeting is very cumbersome.
Personnel costs are often the largest and hardest to report on and extrapolate from the system, including forecasting during personnel negotiations. Staff time spent on regular reporting intervals, such as monthly or quarterly, can be nearly eliminated by adopting software that formats and analysis the information held on the servers for the enterprise resource planning system.
REVIEW AND ANALYSIS
To meet stated needs, staff has identified a budgeting and financial analysis software solution that will complement the City’s efforts to digitalize and streamline operations—helping staff move beyond paper and excel. The solution “Budgeting and Planning” from OpenGov will connect to our enterprise resource planning system and reduce the task hours needed to extract financial data for regular reporting and financial analysis as described above. Staff was introduced to this solution by staff from nearby cites who recently conducted an RFP, including Watsonville. Further, staff was already engaged in the due diligence for asset management and computerized maintenance management software, which lead to introductions with OpenGov. While working with OpenGov and seeing the capabilities of their financial analysis services it became apparent that their solution can meet the needs of Gonzales. To help move the City forward OpenGov offered a substantial introductory discount of 30% of the actual system price.
OpenGov’s “Budgeting and Planning” is a modern, full-featured cloud budgeting solution designed to meet the unique needs of public sector planning and analysis. “Budgeting and Planning” is the industry’s most collaborative experience for budget process automation, managerial reporting, and public transparency -- driving more effective planning and strengthening public trust. While there are over 1,600 local governments using OpenGov, locally the list includes the City of Watsonville, County of San Benito, the City of Santa Barbara, the City of Avenal, and the County of Santa Cruz.
OpenGov will automate the creation of the budget book and move the budget book from a published document to an online easily navigable document. The City will still maintain the ability to publish budget books for those who want one, but it will no longer be the only way to view the budget. Currently the production of the budget book compiles files from a number of platforms and takes hours of staff time to complete. OpenGov will save significant staff time along with giving departments much more control and transparency around their budget analysis.
While analyzing the potential to reduce task hours with OpenGovs solution, staff reviewed reports from the City of Glendora that calculated the return on investment after implanting OpenGov’s “Budget and Planning”. Glendora servers as a comparative City because their process for budgeting was not dissimilar in that they used a financial system that required data extraction into excel before being analyzed.
According to their staff, they were able to reduce their task hours on budget and financial reporting by 50%. Their analysis included more complex calculations like the cost of errors that necessitated rework, the time to download data from across databases and worksheets to run analyses, and the time spent on redundant work required to perform multi-year forecasting. To confirm results, Gonzales staff has been tracking time needed to pull information from the City’s current enterprise resource planning system.
Staff anticipates a similar return on investment as Glendora. With less time spent on managing data, staff can focus their efforts on matters of strategic priority, such as advancing the community center, annexations, and capital projects.
In addition to improving our existing internal processes OpenGov offers several features that will enhance our current process particularly around external communication with the public. It includes an online transparency tool which the public can use to drill into historical budgets and actual finances. It also includes a tool that can be used to easily survey the public both on budget and financial questions, or any other survey need of the City and easily compiles and analyzes the results.
Explain Recommendation and How it Supports the Vision
Gonzales will continue to be a safe, clean, family-friendly community, diverse in its heritage, and committed to working collaboratively to preserve and retain its small-town charm.
Explain: Reducing staff time on managing financial data and financial reporting will free-up staff to focus on strategic priorities. Providing financial information in an accessible format will also increase community engagement on financial topics such as the need for a transaction use tax.
Explain how the Recommendation Directly Implements the Mission The City Council and Staff of the City of Gonzales will realize our Vision by providing the leadership, commitment, and resources necessary to provide excellent services that enhance the quality of life of our diverse community.
Explain: Please see Vision above.
City services will be delivered in a cost-effective, respectful, and friendly manner to ensure the safety and well-being of the residents and the promotion of business, recreational, housing and employment opportunities in an environmentally sustainable manner.
Explain: Please see Vision above.
Strong fiscal policies allow us to provide appropriate infrastructure for:
• Public Safety X Yes No N/A
• Housing X Yes No N/A
• Recreation X Yes No N/A
• Environment X Yes No N/A
• Education X Yes No N/A
Explain: Please see Vision above.
ALTERNATIVES
1. The City Council may, in its discretion, reject the OpenGov proposal presented and then direct staff to:
a. abandon the work effort for digitalizing administrative operations and the budget book, or b. direct staff to advertise for proposals.
BUDGET IMPACT
We propose to fund the purchase of this system with money mostly from Enterprise and the General Funds in a split based on proportion to overall budget. We request a total appropriation of $69,078, inclusive of the implementation year of $30,238.00 for FY23, and the next two years $19,420 for FY4 and $19,420 for FY25. The contract of future years will be included in future operating budgets.
Gonzales is also receiving a substantial introductory discount of 30% of the actual system price.
Attachments:
1. Plan Letter & Scope of Work
2. Software Services Agreement
3. Powerpoint Presentation