The Mayor and several of the council members have publicly admitted that finance isn't their strong suite. Unfortunately Gaye Monroe's remarks on YourHub make this painfully obvious. Historically the City of Northglenn has enjoyed a lower total cost of technology ownership by focusing on software and hardware that would have long term benefits to the City. The previous financial software has lasted the City for fifteen years and continues to be functional according to the City Manager. Apparently Gaye isn't very concerned about the long term value the City receives from the investment in the financial system.

All potential software vendors from the RFP process lacked a complete suite of software applications. Innoprise's payroll system is in development so they didn't have a payroll system to demonstrate and SpringBrook doesn't even have a sales tax system yet. All the comments Gaye made about the payroll system missing from Innoprise proposal apply equally to the sales tax system missing from SpringBrook's proposal. The sales tax system is responsible for collecting ten million dollars of City's annual revenues. Payroll isn't responsible for collecting any significant City revenues for the City. Has anyone considered out-sourcing the City's payroll/Human Resources? With recent advances and cost reductions in payroll service bureaus it just may no longer be feasible for the City to process their own payroll. Have you run the numbers on this Gaye?

In addition to the lack of a sales tax system SpringBrook is $100,000 to $200,000 more expensive than Innoprise. The difference has to be expressed as a range of prices since SpringBrook hasn't committed to a final price yet. Innoprise has committed to a final delivered price significantly less than SpringBrook. Please enlighten us as to how you can you justify such a large price difference Gaye when both proposals are incomplete?

If you listen carefully to the tapes of my talk from the second night of presentations you will hear that My-SQL was my third choice behind Oracle and Microsoft SQL for a database server for the City. My-SQL is open-source software and therefore has the distinct disadvantage of being unsupported by a software vendor. Being open-source software it also has the distinct advantage of being free. The Innoprise software can run in all three database server environments; Oracle, Microsoft SQL and My-SQL.

SpringBrook only runs on MS-SQL and Progress SQL. SpringBrook says it doesn't need the Progress database server but I don't believe that is true. I believe if you look under the hood at their application you will find the Progress database is at the core of their system and MS-SQL is only used on the application server. I could be wrong on that point since I haven't talked to the SpringBrook people. What I did say was that I wouldn't select a software package that used the Progress SQL database since I don't believe it has an extended life expectancy and therefore may prove the cause of an early retirement of the City's investment in the financial software system. I never said I wouldn't use My-SQL but I did say it would be my third preference behind Oracle and Microsoft SQL.

Gaye you need to step back and evaluate the financial impact of the council's decision to purchase the financial software. Is SpringBrook worth $100,000 to $200,000 more to the City than Innoprise? I find this especially troubling since SpringBrook does not have a sales tax system which is the City's second largest revenue source. Utility billing not the payroll system should be driving the bus in this purchase decision. After all, Utility billing is responsible for almost $30 million in revenue collections for the City. Which vendor has the superior utility billing system? Will both systems integrate with the radio reading meters in which the City has already invested several million dollars? Will both systems allow citizens to pay their utility bills on-line? These are the questions you should be asking not the "he said she said" stuff you choose to ask. Not being a strong finance person I can understand how you might have missed some of these points. I am one citizen that appreciates Gene Wieneke asking the tough questions and asking everyone to examine the staff's decisions.