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Approve a contract with OpenGov for $1,506,045 for a 3-year term from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2027 for a budget and planning software solution; and Authorize the County Administrator to execute the contract and any subsequent amendments, pending County Counsel concurrence, up to an aggregate of $74,999
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Published Notice Required? Yes ____ No _X _
Public Hearing Required? Yes ____ No _X _
DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION:
The County Administrator’s Office (CAO) recommends that the Board of Supervisors:
1. Approve a contract with OpenGov for $1,506,045 for a 3-year term from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2027 for a budget and planning software solution; and
2. Authorize the County Administrator to execute the contract and any subsequent amendments, pending County Counsel concurrence, up to an aggregate of $74,999.
SUMMARY:
The County’s current budget process relies on the County’s financial system, Finance Enterprise, which offers limited tools and support for budget development. As a result, the County Administrator’s Office uses an internally developed series of forms and custom reports to collect and prepare the County’s annual and midyear budget reports and related support. In an effort to expand and automate the County’s budget tools, internal controls, and reporting capabilities the County Administrator’s Office in coordination with County department finance staff have been evaluating various budget technology software solutions. After exploring various budget automation solutions, the CAO has selected OpenGov Budget and Planning software system (OpenGov) to automate the budget process and budget document production.
OpenGov provides a cloud-based solution for public sector that is an industry leader in providing integrated cloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution for budgeting performance, communications and reporting. This solution allows the County to modernize its budget process and can integrate with the County’s financial system, Finance Enterprise.
CAO is recommending that the Board approve a 3-year contract with OpenGov for purchase and implementation of an automated budget and planning software solution.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The total cost of the 3-year contract is $1,506,045 and includes implementation of the software, site licenses and software maintenance.
OpenGov has proposed a $128,355 one-time deployment fee and an annual software fee of $437,015 for the first year with a 5% annual increase for each remaining year of the term. The CAO recommends that the Board approve the multi-year contract with OpenGov for $1,506,045 (Attachment A). The cost for the implementation and the first-year software fee was included as part of the department’s FY2024/25 Working Budget.
DISCUSSION:
A modern budget process requires a comprehensive software solution that provides planning, forecasting, process management, budget book development, reporting and analytics, and is well suited to engage all County departments in the budget process. Over the last several years, the County explored various options to automate budget workflow and document development. OpenGov meets these criteria and can integrate with the County’s financial system, Finance Enterprise.
OpenGov best meets the needs of the County in the areas of operating budget preparation, personnel budgeting/forecasting, financial reporting, data management, dashboard analytics, and online budget book. Moreover, it is critical for the solution to synchronize directly to the County’s financial system, Finance Enterprise, providing timely and accurate access to current financial data. OpenGov offers a full-featured, cloud-based, budgeting software designed for public agencies. The centralized platform will help unify the end-to-end budgeting process from the initial stages of planning and personnel forecasting through final publication, while enabling improved collaboration throughout the process. As an integrated budgeting and planning solution, it will allow staff to develop their department budgets in a more streamlined and systematic way and review against real-time financial information from the County’s financial system. This will dramatically improve a labor-intensive step within the current process whereby numerous Excel spreadsheets of department budget submissions are manually organized and consolidated. With the efficiency gained with OpenGov, staff will be able to divert more time to analysis and evaluations of programs, policies and operations. Additionally, the software includes an online budget book and dashboarding capabilities to present financial data in a graphical/visual format, as well as transparency tools to help organize data from the County’s multi-department budget according to different Board initiatives/priorities. These publication capabilities will also allow the County to continue producing the annual Proposed Budget in pdf format.
The County currently has contracts with OpenGov for a web-based Capital Facilities Improvement Plan development solution and a procurement system through General Services. OpenGov has over ten years of experience working in government (budgeting) makes them an ideal fit for the County’s budget process and development needs. They have over 2,100 public agency clients in 48 states including over 230 in California alone. They have over 650 public agency clients using the budget and planning solution.
This service is recommended as a sole source procurement as there are no other known budgeting software service providers that meet or exceed the County’s budgeting process goals and integrate with the County’s financial system, Finance Enterprise.
The CAO recommends that the County begin transitioning from the current manual budget process to OpenGov beginning in October 2024.
ALTERNATIVES:
The Board could choose not to award the contract. This action is not recommended as the recommended budget and planning software solution will enable the County to achieve a more streamlined, automated budget process.
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
The County Administrator’s Office coordinated with the Department of Information Technology to develop technical requirements and County Counsel reviewed the contract.
CAO RECOMMENDATION:
APPROVE DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION