Background

Since 2019, the Village has worked to replace its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, with the financial software module being the backbone of the new ERP. Along with our ERP advisor, Plante Moran, the Village worked to understand our current and future software needs.  After an extended review of competing ERP software providers, Tyler Technologies was selected due to meeting most of our stated needs.  One area which wasn’t sufficiently covered by any of the proposed ERP software providers, was a robust Budget/CIP and online financial reporting capability.  It was decided to hold off on securing a separate budgeting software module until after the Tyler financial system was implemented.  Staff wanted to make sure the Tyler system was fully operational, and that any future budget modules would work smoothly with the new Tyler system. For the last year, Staff has continued to develop the Village’s annual budget outside of the ERP system, by continuing to use spreadsheets as a basis for the budget presentation.

During the past twelve months, Finance staff met with three vendors who offer standalone, best-in-breed budgeting software that can integrate with Tyler’s ERP software. We also met with Tyler representatives to discuss their budget module to see if it could be better utilized.  Through this review, Finance staff concluded that two of the best-in-breed options, OpenGov and Questica, would meet the Village’s needs.  Both providers offer a robust solution, that would allow Village staff to better develop budgets and CIP plan documents, as well as establish greater financial transparency online with the public. A request for proposal was developed and sent to these two companies. Finance Staff, with assistance from Christopher Blough of Plante Moran, evaluated the two proposals and determined that OpenGov would provide the best budget software solution.

OpenGov is an industry-leading governmental software company, providing cloud services to over 1,800 government agencies. Their Budgeting & Planning software is designed specifically for the needs of state and local government organizations. They also currently share hundreds of customers with Tyler. As part of our due diligence, Finance staff performed reference checks with organizations that are OpenGov (or Questica) and Tyler customers. These customers have similar needs to ours, and the consensus was overwhelmingly positive. Their insights noted that they have found the integration to be straightforward, the software environment is very intuitive, and they have continued to receive the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Finance Officers’ Association (GFOA).

OpenGov provided the most cost-effective solution. Their proposal for the first year’s software-as-a-subscription costs is $82,147, plus a one-time, fixed implementation fee is $70,520, for a total cost of $152,667. Future subscription cost increases are limited 5% per year.  The other proposal, from Questica, had a year-one subscription cost of $85,497 with one-time implementation fees at $73,400, for a total of $158,897.

RECOMMENDATION

It is recommended that the Village Board award a contract for the provision of budget software to OpenGov for a first-year subscription cost of $82,147, and a fixed implementation fee of $70,520, and authorize Staff to execute the necessary documents.