COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Rebecca Campbell, Director of Finance
DATE: June 16, 2026
SUBJECT: Adoption of a Resolution Approving a Cooperative Purchasing Agreement with Vertosoft LLC, an Authorized Reseller for OpenGov , for Delivery and Implementation of a Budget & Financial Planning, Capital Project Management, and Grants Management System
Description:
The City Council will consider adopting a Resolution approving a Cooperative Purchasing Agreement with Vertosoft LLC, an authorized reseller of OpenGov, for delivery and implementation of a Budget & Financial Planning, Capital Project Management, and Grants Management system.
Environmental Notice: The activity is not a “Project” as defined under Section 15378 of the California Environmental Quality Act State Guidelines; therefore, pursuant to State Guidelines Section 15060(c)(3) no environmental review is required.
RECOMMENDATION:
1. Adopt a Resolution authorizing the use of a cooperative purchasing agreement with Vertosoft, LLC, an authorized reseller for OpenGov, for delivery and implementation of a Budget & Financial Planning, Capital Project Management, and Grants Management System; and
2. Approve a term of three years, in an amount not to exceed $889,242.46, with an option to renew for up to two additional one-year extension terms in an amount not to exceed $250,187.86 for the fourth year and in an amount not to excee d $262,697.25 for the fifth year; and
3. Authorize the City Manager or designee to enter into the Agreement and execute any and all renewals, contingent on City Council approval of the Fiscal Year 2026 -28 biennial budget.
BACKGROUND:
The City of Santa Ma ria used Tyler Eden as its core financial system since 1998. That system offered limited integrations with other City functions, resulting in the development of manual processes using paper, email, and spreadsheets. The process of planning for an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System implementation began with the Fiscal Year 2018-20 Financial Plan. A Request for Proposals was issued in October 2022 and a total of four proposals were received. The selection committee selected a proposal from 2 Cognizant/Collaborative for the implementation of Workday, SpryPoint, and CanAm/Teller Technologies. On March 19, 2024, the City Council approved entering into an agreement with Cognizant Worldwide Limited – Cognizant Technology Solutions US Corporation (Cognizant) for implementation of the City’s ERP System.
Implementation consisted of two primary phases. Phase I kicked off in June 2024 to configure Workday for Core Financials, SpryPoint for Utility Billing, and CanAm/Teller for cashiering. Core financials and cashiering went live on July 2, 2025. SpryPoint went live on November 10, 2025. As part of Core Financials, two modules were configured to support management of projects and grants; however, a substantial portion of the grants module was left unconfigured due to Cognizant staff turnover and is now approximately 85% configured thanks to Finance staff’s efforts.
Phase II kicked off in December 2024 to configure Workday for Human Capital Management (HCM) and Payroll. These modules were originally slated to go live in December 2025; however, it was determined that additional time for configuration and testing would be necessary. These modules are live as of March 21, 2026.
Implementation of Adaptive Planning, touted as a cloud -based planning and analysis solution designed to plan for financials, sales, and the workforce, was delayed until July 2025. The Budget Office of the Department of Finance worked diligently to configure Adaptive Planning in the hopes of going live in November 2025 to support the City’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 -28 biennial budget process. In staff’s opinion, its configuration should have occurred parallel with Core Financials; however, configuration of workforce planning could not be completed until HCM and Payroll were live in Workday. As a result, the Budget Office was left with no choice but to retool a series of spreadsheets carried forward throughout the years and modified according to the current financial planning focus for the organization.
Workday is a robust financial management and accou nting tool from which the City will reap many benefits and operate more efficiently. The Budget Office’s testing of Adaptive Planning made it clear it is better suited to developing small project -based budgets for companies in the private sector and will not produce quality financial planning for the City as a whole. It’s limited features and functionality and Workday’s grants and project modules do not enhance the ability of the Department of Finance to gather budgetary and grant information from City departments, thereby suppressing collaborative analysis. The Department of Finance, in consultation with the City Manager’s Office, determined that a need exists for a tool that will allow compilation, analysis, and presentation of this data.
The Budget Office spends an estimated 1,800 hours each year on preparing, formatting, reviewing, re-formatting, re-working and similar processes related to the budget and other various reports. This includes working with departments on their staffing requests, operating and project proposals, and balancing all the requests within the parameters of available City resources. Much of this work is completed by the Budget Manager and Senior Budget Analyst due to limitations of current financial reporting and budgeting tools 3 Budgeting &
Performance
Operating
Budget
Workforce
Planning
Operations
&
Maintenance
Capital
Planning
at their disposal. This estimate does not consider the time spent by staff in other departments/divisions.
Manual processes and the use archaic tools increase the room for error due to financial data being submitted back and forth through email, Teams, and offline channels. Although budgets have been successfully prepared in years past, it is not an effective or efficient way to prepare a budget or capital improvement program. Similarly, this has resulted in decentralized file keeping and maintenance of projects and grants as responsibility is reassigned when staff turns over. The Public Works Department manages many of the projects in the Public Safety, Public Ways & Facilities, Public Transit, Leisure & Cultural Services, and General Government groups; however, other departments like Police, Library, and Recreation & Parks actively manage a few projects. This decentralized approach to pro ject management makes it difficult to share information that is typically stored within each Department. Operating departments are primarily responsible for seeking grant opportunities, preparing effective grant applications, and for successfully managing grant programs once awarded. After acceptance requirements are met, departments are to submit to the Grants Division of the Department of Finance a Grant Information Form with required documentation. Departments are responsible for maintaining for auditing purposes all grant -related records in accordance with grant requirements. Other platforms are available that are specifically focused on the financial planning and reporting needs of local governments.
After participating in multiple demonstrations, staf f has determined that OpenGov’s capabilities meet the City’s current and future needs in the areas of financial planning and forecasting; capital improvement program planning; capital project management; grant management; personnel budgeting and negotiatio ns; and, financial reporting and transparency. OpenGov is a San Francisco, CA based company founded in 2012 to help public agencies improve the accessibility and transparency of their financial data to the public. OpenGov currently services over 2,200 gove rnments ranging from states to counties to cities. Some examples of the California cities served by OpenGov are large cities like Santa Barbara, Rancho Cucamonga, Oxnard, Santa Monica, Long Beach, San Jose and San Diego; to mid -size cities like Diamond Bar , Redwood City, Palo Alto, and Hayward; and many smaller cities and towns like Foster City, Alameda, Cupertino, and Menlo Park. Over the last several years, OpenGov has developed tools to allow for operating budget and CIP preparation.
4 DISCUSSION:
Budgeting & Performance and Workforce Planning:
On February 28, 2026, The Mejorando Group facilitated a day -long City Council Goal Setting Workshop to discuss roles and expectations, effective governance, recent accomplishments, community and global tr ends, culminating in conversations on future vision and strategic priority areas. The City Council adopted as a goal, “Fiscal Management – ensure responsible fiscal and budgeting practices. The objectives of this goal are to produce balanced budgets where ongoing revenues match ongoing expenditures and healthy reserves cushion against economic downturns and unexpected costs. The Budget Office strives to produce accurate and timely budget and mid -year budgets. To that end, analysis of non -financial data is c ritical to successful operations.
Currently, the budget preparation is cumbersome and time -consuming for all City departments with no easy way to relate to non-financial data. The largely manual budget preparation process consists of departments submitting their budgetary proposals by way of spreadsheets (created by Finance) and communications through email or Microsoft Teams.
OpenGov has an integrated budgeting and planning 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. Workforce Planning will simplify planning for the City’s most complex and important asset – its employees – with scenario analysis, advanced calculations, and integrated budget requests.
A 60% reduction in manual labor will allow the Budget Office to reclaim 1,200 hours annually. These saved hours are calculated based on budget preparation, emails and meetings with departments, managing spreadsheets and publishing Word-based budget books. Other OpenGov customers tend to find 0.5% - 1.5% of available budget that can be allocated earlier in the process due to the date math calculation in OpenGov’s Workforce Planning module, which allows for penny precise budgeting of City staff total cost. Staff believe that the advanced calculations made possible by Workforce P lanning and forecast capabilities alone will favorably reduce the amount budgeted in the General Fund by $350,000 to $600,000 and Citywide by $600,000 to $1,000,000 annually.
Reporting & Transparency:
The Budget Office monitors budget in accordance with C ity policies and reports on the City’s finances and operational performance through a variety of methods and output, including quarterly financial reports that summarize the year -to-date financial performance and the City’s major funds, identify and disclo se any areas of potential concern to the City’s financial health, and recommend corrective action if appropriate.
5 OpenGov integrates with and aggregates data from a variety of sources both financial and non -financial. In addition, OpenGov’s visualization and dashboarding capabilities allow staff and the community to easily access, visualize, and compare data from several sources all in one place. With OpenGov, the Budget Office can create specific dashboards for the City Council (see screenshot below), lea dership, each department, the community, or other stakeholders so they have ready access to the data they need from different systems and can monitor progress toward goals or trends over time.
In terms of reporting, OpenGov can publish an interactive, Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) award -winning online budget book. The City of Santa Barbara recently published its Recommended Fiscal Year 2027 Budget using OpenGov at:
https://stories.opengov.com/santabarbara/1027a642-c6e8-4e08-8168- 1b923970708c/published/Vcq27Guw6?currentPageId=TOC. The County of Santa Barbara recently published its FY 2026-27 Recommended Budge t using OpenGov at:
https://stories.opengov.com/countyofsantabarbaraca/026ef42f-2026-47b5-91de- d6af872e19f9/published/Zzvm0rEyy?currentPageId=6a065aa625f34a0001a767b6.
Other financial reports, such as the quarterly financial report, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), and Measure U Annual Report can also be published using OpenGov. The City currently relies on external consultants to build state -mandated financial reports (ACFR, Street Report, Financial Transaction Reports, etc.) because Workday’s reporting is not optimized for the specific government formats. Transitioning these builds to an in -house automated tool (OpenGov) , in time, could save $ 100,000 annually in professional service fees.
Capital Planning and Project Management:
The City Council also adopted as a goal, “Well -maintained infrastructure including facilities, streets, parks, and utilities.” The objective of this goal is to continue to invest in sound infrastructure. The City plans for these investments using Capital, Maintenance, and Equipment Project (CMEP) requests to systematically plan, schedule, budget, and
6 finance capital projects to ensure cost effectiveness and efficiency of construction. Just like the rest of the budget process, these requests are submitted to the Budget Office as spreadsheets. The CMEP is a four -year plan organized into the same functional groupings used for the operating programs. The Public Works Department manages many of the projects in the Public Safety, Public Ways & Facilities, Public Transit, Leisure & Cultural Services, and General Government groups; however, other departments like Police, Library, and Recreation & Parks actively manage a few projects. This decentralized approach to project management makes it difficult to share information that is typically stored within each Department.
OpenGov supports forecasts of long-term capital expenditures, and tracking milestones, schedules, and deliverables to keep teams aligned and stakeholders informed of progress. Implementing a single, t rusted view of capital projects, assets, funding, and schedules Citywide will reduce silos while preserving departmental ownership and governance. OpenGov will link planning, delivery, and project management to financial and asset data – giving leadership real-time insight into progress, dependencies, and risk.
Project schedules and locations will be aligned to proactively identify conflicts, reduce rework, and improve the efficiency of capital project delivery. Tailored dashboards will be delivered for leadership, City Council, departments and the community to strengthen trust and clearly communicate progress beyond static budget documents.
Grants Management:
The City aggressively pursues grant funding from federal, state and other sources, consistent with identified City goals and objectives. Operating departments are primarily responsible for seeking grant opportunities, preparing effective grant applications, and for successfully managing grant programs once awarded. After acceptance requirements are met, departments are to submit to the Grants Division of the Department of Finance a Grant Information Form with required documentation. Departments are responsible for maintaining for auditing purposes all grant -related records in accordance with grant requirements. Federal grants are included in the scope of the City’s single audit. It is the City’s policy that all financial and compliance requirements have been met through the single audit and that the single audit be used as both a financial and complia nce audit.
The Grants Division supports departments citywide with grant reporting requirements by reviewing grant applications and documentation, as well as monitoring grant revenues and expenditures. The Grants Division is also responsible for coordinatin g preparation and distribution of single audit reports.
The Transit Division of the Public Works Department manages the City’s highest federal funding exposure, making compliance and drawdown accuracy mission -critical. Aligning grant tracking with Workday data gives City staff full lifecycle visibility – from award through final expenditure.
7 OpenGov ties funding to specific activities and compliance checkpoints, minimizing risk and maximizing reimbursement. Centralizing grant audit trails will reduce time spent on manual compliance checks by 50-70%, potentially saving the City $25,000 to $100,000 annually. A 1% improvement in grant drawdown rates or reimbursement could potentially project $300,000 of the City’s grant portfolio from being lost to inactive status or reporting errors.
Proposed Solution:
The OpenGov platform will support collaboration amongst staff in one centralized location, rather than sending spreadsheets, PDFs and other documents back and fo rth.
The platform will be linked directly to Workday, thereby providing timely and accurate access to critical financial data. Most importantly, this streamlined process minimizes the potential for human error while compiling the previously mentioned sprea dsheets and Word documents.
While a new platform will provide efficiencies, some of the time discussed above will remain and the staffing cost will not be eliminated. It is expected the efficiencies will allow the Finance Department and other City staff to achieve more in-depth analysis of financial data and non-financial data and any relationships therein. The ability to generate timely budget estimates and scenarios is invaluable as we continue to work on the City’s Budget Rebalancing Initiative.
Purchasing Method:
Cooperative purchasing is used by municipalities in the purchase of goods and services.
This arrangement offers the participants significant economies of scale. Although one municipality may issue specifications and receive bids, each entity i ndependently executes its own contract, administers the procurement function, and finances the purchase. This is an acceptable practice that allows municipal agencies to “piggy -back” on contracts for services and supplies, issued by a wide range of other g overnmental agencies. Cooperative purchasing agreements may be entered into with state, city governments, public or quasi -public entities, and non -profit entities. The City adopted Resolution No. 2004-31 to formally authorize the cooperative purchasing pro cedure and it states that if the public interest and convenience would be best served by utilizing another entity’s contract for competitive pricing of goods and/or services, the Purchasing Agent may buy directly from a vendor under the cooperative purchasing program.
Staff conducted research and identified a cooperative purchasing agreement opportunity for use by the City. OMNIA Partners provides access to cooperative agreements such as the competitively bid and awarded contract with Vertosoft LLC, which allows other agencies to participate in the contract and receive discounted volume pricing. Staff has reviewed the contract terms and conditions and is satisfied they are in alignment with the City’s requirements. The End User License Agreement (EULA) has been reviewed and approved by the City Attorney’s Office.
8 Staff recommends that the Purchasing Agent purchase of OpenGov as a Software-as-a- Service (Saas) from Vertosoft LLC utilizing the Region 14 Education Service Center Contract Number 159574 through OMNIA Partners for the contract. The contract term has an effective date of October 1, 2025 and an expiration date of September 30, 2028.
The contract shall remain in effect for a period of three (3) years, unless terminated, cancelled, or extended. Upon mu tual agreement, the contract may be renewed for an additional two (2) year period or portion thereof. Staff also recommends authorizing expenditures in accordance with the adopted budget.
Implementation Timeline and Methodology:
It’s important to execute this agreement as soon as possible in order to meet the timeline for the next upcoming FY 2027-28 Mid-Cycle Budget Update process, the preparation of which will commence in November or December 2026.
OpenGov’s deployment methodology includes project initi ation, best practices review, configuration, validation and deployment. A dedicated team of OpenGov employees will be assigned to the City’s project and include an executive sponsor, a project manager, an analyst, subject matter experts, integration engine ers and customer success managers. This proven approach to implementation has been successful in over 2,000 implementations.
Impact on the Community
The Enterprise Resource Planning System is bringing forth modern technologies to the City’s financial and human resources operations. The City and the community will benefit from the efficiency of operations, enhanced security of City assets, and transparency of information.
Fiscal Impact
There is no fiscal impact for FY 2026 -27 as a result of this contract. There is sufficient appropriation in the adopted budget for the Financial / ERP System Project to procure and implement this type of Software -as-a-Service (SaaS). However, execution of this agreement and all renewals are contingent on City Council approval of the FY 2026 -28 biennial budget as ongoing annual costs are included in the proposed budget for FY 2027-
28. The term shall be three (3) years with an option to renew for up to two (2), one (1) year extension terms, for a maximum total of five (5) years. E ntering into a three -year agreement benefits the City by locking -in fees for the entire term of the agreement. The fee agreement timeline is illustrated in the table below:
Year Annual Cost Implementation Total
2026-2027 $ 216,121.66 $ 207,918.90 $ 424,040.56
2027-2028 226,927.76 - 226,927.76
2028-2029 238,274.14 - 238,274.14
Total $ 681,323.56 $ 207,918.90 $ 889,242.46
9 Should the fourth- and fifth-year renewal options be granted, the costs are not to exceed $250,187.86 and $262,697.25, respectively.
A 60% reduction in manual labor will allow the Budget Office to reclaim 1,200 hours annually. These saved hours are calculated based on budget preparation, emails and meetings with departments, managing spreadsheets and publishing Word-based budget books. Other OpenGov customers tend to find 0.5% - 1.5% of available budget that can be allocated earlier in the process due to the date math calculation in OpenGov’s Workforce Planning module, which allows for penny precise budgeting of City staff total cost.
Staff believes implementation of OpenGov’s Workforce Planning will result in a more accurate personnel budget for FY 2027-28 and beyond, which is projected to fully offset the annual cost in the General Fund. Staff estimates that the amount budgeted in the General Fund will be reduced by $350,000 to $600,000 and Citywide by $600,000 to $1,000,000 annually.
Currently, the City relies on external consultants to build state-mandated financial reports (ACFR, Street Report, Financial Transaction Reports, etc.) because Workday’s reporting is not optimized for the specific government formats. Transitioning these builds to an in - house automated tool (OpenGov) is projected to save $100,000 annually in professional service fees.
Centralizing grant audit trails will reduce time spent on manual compliance checks by 50- 70%, potentially saving the City $25,000 to $100,000 annually. A 1% improvement in grant drawdown rates or reimbursement could potentially project $300,000 of the City’s grant portfolio from being lost to inactive status or reporting errors.
ATTACHMENT(S)
A. Resolution
B. OpenGov End User License Agreement
C. OpenGov Statement of Work
D. Vertosoft Quote for OpenGov – City of Santa Maria, CA E. Region 14 Education Service Center Contract #159574 for Software & SaaS Solutions with Vertosoft LLC; Effective October 1, 2025