Auditor, IT and finance advisers warn county ERP and timeclocks are at end-of-life; court asks staff to return with financing options

The county auditor and the IT director told the court that the county's core enterprise resource planning (ERP) financial system and the vendor-managed timeclocks have reached end-of-life and require replacement within the year.

Auditor Dale explained that servers and some vendor components will no longer be supported and that migrating to a vendor's new system may create workflow regressions without careful selection of a modern, fully integrated solution. "If we stay with our current system, they would be required to shift to their new software," he said, adding that counties that migrated without a coordinated, comprehensive plan experienced degraded operations.

IT Director Daryl described the benefits of a modern cloud-based ERP that integrates finance, human resources and timekeeping and said vendors and demonstrations suggest a replacement package in the $4M$6M range for a long-lived solution. Tyler-based timeclocks used across county facilities were also reported as approaching end-of-life and would likely need replacement; combining timekeeping into a new ERP can avoid duplicate procurements.

Noe, the county's outside financing adviser, outlined three principal funding approaches the court could consider: (1) dedicate available capital balances or COs from the 2021 certificates (the court has unallocated 2021 CO funds), (2) issue new certificates of obligation or tax notes to finance the acquisition, or (3) pursue a hybrid of cash and debt so that the project does not materially change the county's interest-and-sinking tax rate. Noe said a tailored proposal modeling combinations of cash and debt can be prepared for the court.

Commissioners asked staff to return with a spreadsheet that models (a) the impact on the county's fund balance and capital plan if $2M$3M were used from existing COs; (b) the debt service and tax-rate effects of a $6M certificate obligation issue; and (c) which ARPA or other grants/allocations might legally be applied. The judge emphasized procurement timing: staff will need time to prepare an RFP and start vendor demonstrations if the court decides to move quickly.

Next steps: finance and IT will produce a funding-options spreadsheet and procurement roadmap for the next court meeting, including legal review of whether existing 2021 CO allocations can be repurposed for software-as-a-service and whether ARPA funds can be applied in whole or in part.