Recommendation to request City Manager to provide an update to the City Council on the status of the replacement of the citywide Financial and Human Resources Management Systems.
Item 18 is a communication from Councilman Al Austin, Councilwoman Susie Price, Councilwoman Stacy Mango and Councilmember Roberto Durango. Recommendation to require city manager to provide an update to the City Council on the status of the replacement of the citywide financial and human resources management systems. Councilmember Austin Yes, I think this agenda item is pretty self-explanatory. Yes, the council and the 2014 2014 budget appropriated close to $10 million, about $2 million for a new financial H.R. financial management systems. I want to find out an update as it as it has been, a significant expenditure. And this is something particularly as we've been talking about innovation and technology here as a council over the last couple of weeks on a significant investment in new technology. And if so, it's important for us to know where we are. And so I would love to get a staff report. Thank you, Councilman Mongo. You have a second or any comments or not? Okay. Any public comment on the item? I know. Any public comment on the item? Seeing none. We're going to have the I'm assuming the staff report right now on this. Is that correct? Mayor Councilmember is our finance director. John GROSS gave us a quick staff report. But I think what the councilman was asking for is it would be much more than a quick staff report tonight. So we can come back with a full on two from for something because a lot of work's been going on. So, John. Thank you. Okay. Hold on a second before we go there, because I just want to make sure because I know we're asking for a report and so is it is it better for this to come back and get one full report? I am assuming you want a public report or are you asking for a two from four? Well, I would love to get a public report on that. If you could just give us an overview of of where we are and then to four from to the to the council. I think that would be actually sufficient. Again, when this this issue was was brought forth and there were 14 budget. Majority of the council was not here. And so one of the again, in the spirit of bringing everybody up to speed and understanding where we are today. I just wanted. To then report and then the follow up would be the two from four. We're happy to talk about it tonight because this is financial. Our project is well underway. It's on budget and it is. And we expect it to remain a top priority. There's a substantial use of internal resources to select design and implement replacement for all of the city's main financial and H.R. systems with a closely integrated modern set of systems. It's a joint project managed by technology and innovation, human resources, financial management, water and the harbor departments. The project, however, involves all the departments, and I'll talk a little bit about the reason for it. As was mentioned in In the Agenda item. This financial assistance replacement project is replacing essential technology from the 1970s. It's at risk for not even being able to be maintained in the future. In addition, the new systems will give the city capabilities well beyond what we currently have, including, for example, more in the way of open government access and more online capabilities. The system was authorized and funded by the City Council in 2014 and is by far the largest system replacement project the city has ever done. The project, as was mentioned, will cost $30 million, but what's important about that is that enterprise funds and other city funds are being used to leverage the general funds on a 2 to 1 basis. So as a result, with that, for a general fund investment of $10 million, you're getting a $30 million system. Much effort has already been put into the project. We've already spent a year with many city staff reviewing systems and system needs. An RFP for the new systems has been developed and released with about 4000 different specifications covering 20 subsystems. So that's what we did over the last year. Ten vendors have now responded to the RFP at the end of 2014, just a little while ago, and we're currently reviewing the proposals, having detailed software demonstrations, and then we'll do some site visits of the top systems to see them in use and to talk to users to make sure the staff makes a good recommendation to the city council. We expect to make that recommendation as to the system and vendor to select by the end of the summer. At that time we'll have a detailed report for you and we can do again the TFF if that's what you want. But we'll have a detailed report for the city council at that time. Yeah. And based on the information we have so far during the RFP process, we believe the project can be completed within the budgeted amount because we are one of the largest cities in the country and we'll be putting in extremely complex system for the implementation. Once we select the vendor, it's probably going to take 2 to 3 years. During the implementation part of the project, city will design processes for the new systems, train staff and make the systems operational. We expect the implementation to require an even greater effort than the staff time now being used. And then finally, because of the importance of the systems to the city operations and their current antiquated status of the systems, the project is a critical project and will remain a very high priority for staff. That's the end of our report. Thank you. Embarrassing. Well, thank you. And it's very encouraging to know that we are moving forward with that. It's in the RFP process. And so far as I hear, if I hear you correctly, we feel like we're on budget to make this happen within the specified amount that we have allocated. You are correct. And the two tier three year implementation process. Is there a prioritization in terms of what systems are most important to us? We will be talking to this selected vendor about that and we'll make a decision at that time is what's in the best interest of the city and what the vendor recommends. It is normal, but not always the case that financial systems go in first. Okay. So I look forward to to the from in the near future and then a report back around the summertime. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Mongo. Thank you to the staff for bringing this forward tonight. And I look forward to your more extensive memo, if that's still forthcoming. As a government employee who relies upon systems such as these in budget management and e-procurement and all those systems to ensure that we're operating effectively and efficiently, I also look forward to the ways that we can connect this system to open data. Because as more and more governments have pushed this information out to constituents and citizens and provide a more transparent government, it's really about ensuring that we are doing what's right for the citizens, first and foremost. So thank you very much, and I look forward to more. Thank you. With that, we've done public comment on this item. Please cast your votes. Motion carries seven zero. Thank you. Now we have item 19.