DATE:
February 15, 2022
TO:
Mayor and City Council Members
FROM:
Nils Bentsen, City Manager
BY:
Casey Brooksher, Director of Administrative Services
SUBJECT:
Consideration of Contract with OpenGov, Inc. for Budgeting & Planning Software
RECOMMENDED ACTION
It is recommended that the City Council authorize the City Manager to enter into a five-year agreement with OpenGov, Inc. (OpenGov), in an amount not-to-exceed $250,534, to provide software pertaining to the development and preparation of the City’s budget.
BACKGROUND
Currently, the City utilizes OpenGov to provide its financial transparency portal. This is an interactive tool that allows the citizens to view, as well as create and develop custom reports based on the City’s audited financial statements, as well as the adopted budget. The City began providing these tools during Fiscal Year 2015-16 at an annual cost of $8,100.
While financial transparent is key to OpenGov’s operations, the company has grown to provide software aiming to increase productivity and streamline governmental processes. This includes software to assist with the annual budget process through their Budget & Planning software.
The City begins its annual budget process in March of each year. While the process is managed by the Finance Division, City staff as a whole, spends countless amount of hours developing the budget to present to the City Council for adoption in June of each year. The budget is developed using software programs, which include printed worksheets from the City’s financial system New World, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, and Crystal Reports. Since each of these are standalone programs, Finance staff must take the output from each of these programs and manually enter budget data into the New World Financial System. This is a very laborious process and can lead to minor mistakes from keystroke errors. One minor change to an expenditure account, say for example office supplies, will take approximately up to one hour of staff time to change throughout all the programs associated with the preparation of the budget.
This outlined process is to ensure that the proposed budget is entered into the financial system. Finance will then import the data from the financial system into Microsoft Excel to create the reports, including charts and graphs, as seen in the budget book. In addition to Microsoft Excel, the budget book narrative is typed into Microsoft Word. Finance staff spends the majority of the month of May creating and editing the budget book in preparation of delivering to the City Council and citizens. The City of Hesperia is not unique with this the budget preparation; as a majority of cities follow a very similar process.
ISSUES/ANALYSIS
As stated, OpenGov started as a financial transparency tool for local governments, which the City currently utilizes. Through the years, OpenGov has expanded its software offerings which aimed to add efficiencies to City processes. Seeing that a large amount in staff-hours are spent developing the Budgeting & Planning software.
The Budget & Planning Suite is an integrated budgeting solution that has the capacity to aggregate and synchronize both financial and non-financial data. It is intended to streamline and transform the budget process from the initial stages of planning and personnel forecasting on through final publication while enabling collaboration throughout. The software includes multi-year and personnel forecasting, and an electronic budget book, which links to the financial and non-financial data as appropriate.
With the Budget & Planning software (software), City staff will be development department budgets in one centralized location (software) as opposed to handwriting figures on worksheets, keying data into Microsoft Excel, and typing narrative into Microsoft Word. Additionally, the software has the capabilities to be linked directly into New World Financial System, which will decrease the time spent on data entry and reducing typographical errors. Finally, this software will generate and create an electronic budget.
With an electronic budget book, the City will not only save time, it will reduce the amount of paper needed. The average final budget book is about 400 pages. There are multiple draft versions printed prior to finalization. In total, the City will reduce the amount of paper used on an electronic budget. With that, a version can be printed; however, the look of the budget will be slightly different than the current budget. Additionally, as with the financial transparency portal, Citizens will have the ability to create custom budget reports and charts.
In an effort to streamline implementation, should Council approve this contract, staff anticipates the following is the planned implementation schedule:
Workforce (positon budgeting) – Implement by March 2022. This will streamline the budgeting of positions, which comprises approximately 32% of the operating budgeted expenditures.
Creation of Digital Budget in Brief – Implement by end of May 2022. A budget in brief is a high level summary budget that can be used as a quick reference to the City’s budget.
Creation of the Digital Budget Book – Complete by September 2022. For the FY 2022-23 Budget, staff will create the paper document as in years past. To ensure that the Budget & Planning software is implemented properly, the budget will be recreated with the OpenGov software. The Digital Budget Book will be available for viewing at this time.
Train staff on new process – Complete in December 2022. All City staff will receive training on the process in preparation of using the Budgeting & Planning software for the development of the FY 2023-24 Budget.
FISCAL IMPACT
The annual cost of services is $49,900 and the pro-rated fee for the period of March through June 2022 is $13,934. Additionally, there is an implementation feel of $37,000. The following is the five-year contracted cost:
Date
Amount Due
March 1, 2022*
$50,934
July 1, 2022
49,990
July 1, 2023
49,990
July 1, 2024
49,990
July 1, 2025
49,990
Total
$214,894
*Includes software costs of $13,933.33 and implementation of $37,000 Staff anticipates there is adequate budgeted savings for the $50,934 year one costs in the current fiscal year budget. Additionally, should this software be approved by the City Council, staff will include the $49,900 annual cost in the General Fund Operating budget for the duration of the contract (FY 2022-23 through FY 2025-26).
ALTERNATIVE(S)
Provide alternative direction to staff.
ATTACHMENT(S)
None.
City of Hesperia STAFF REPORT City of Hesperia STAFF REPORT City of Hesperia
STAFF REPORT
City of Hesperia
STAFF REPORT
Staff Report to the Mayor and City Council Members
Consideration of Contract with OpenGov, Inc. for Budgeting & Planning Software February 15, 2022