County IT warns of rising software/hardware costs; CAD upgrade paused pending funding

Dean Hain, director of MIS, told the board the county is facing substantial upward pressure on software subscription and hardware costs that complicate technology planning and the FY27 budget.

He cited specific vendor moves and industry-wide price increases: the migration from PubWorks to a higher-cost GWorks product and an agenda-management system that rose from roughly $9,000 to about $30,000 in recent vendor pricing. "We had to process a change order... down to $7,500. She saved us over $100,000," Hain said, describing an in-house Workday hire that reduced contracted consulting expense; he also said the CAD (computer-aided dispatch) upgrade initiative is paused because vendor quotes exceeded the budgeted placeholder.

Hain urged continued scrutiny of license counts, renewals and hardware procurement timelines and said MIS is managing day-to-day tradeoffs to keep services operating while staff pursues savings and alternative procurement vehicles. Commissioners asked for a clear list of high-cost recurring licenses and options MIS could pursue to control future increases.