Broomfield approves Oracle, High Street contracts to replace 18-year-old finance and HR systems

Broomfield City and County Council unanimously approved contracts on second reading to implement a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, voting to authorize a five-year Oracle Cloud subscription resold through Mythix LLC and a master services agreement with High Street IT Solutions for implementation services. The council approved the measures after staff described a multi-year, organization-wide project to move finance, budgeting, procurement and human resources off an 18-year-old platform and into a cloud-based system.

The ERP will be implemented in three phases over roughly the next two years, starting with the budget module, followed by core financials, and finishing with human resources, payroll and benefits. “An enterprise resource planning system is essentially a single integrated platform that will bring together the city and county's core functions, including finance, human resources, payroll, and procurement into one place,” said Nikki Macklin, Director of Human Services.

Graham Clark, Broomfield’s finance director, told council staff and an outside consultant from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) led a long RFP and evaluation process that included 100 staff in demonstrations and resulted in selection of Oracle and High Street. The Oracle subscription was presented at $4,700,000 for five years; the proposed master services agreement with High Street for implementation services was presented at $66,200,000 over five years, with milestone payments tied to deliverables. Mike Muha of GFOA said the statement of work defines more than 50 deliverables—configuration documentation, reports, data conversion and interfaces—to preserve institutional knowledge and support future maintenance: “Those deliverables in the contract, and there are over 50 of them, lay out clearly the work that High Street will be doing to document not only the configurations made within Oracle, but the adaptation of Broomfield's business process to the technology,” Muha said.

Staff said the project has been prepared for more than a year through cross‑functional “pit crews” of more than 100 employees and that the project management office will maintain governance, change control and a change manager role. Kateri Abeyta, Director of IT, said training planning and ongoing quarterly updates from the vendor will require a sustained training strategy with vendor and internal training resources.

Council members pressed staff on funding and contingency. Deputy Director of Finance David Acevedo Yates summarized the funding plan: implementation costs will be paid from the capital improvement program (CIP) in 2025 and 2026 (cited in the materials as $2,730,000 in 2025 and $3,640,000 in 2026), with ongoing software license and maintenance costs moving to the operating budget in later years. Staff noted the CIP plan includes a multi‑year spend plan and that specific annual appropriations will be required in future budgets. Clark and others also emphasized that implementation milestones trigger payments and that the Oracle subscription fees will be paid quarterly in arrears.

Councilmember Leslie, who has been through multiple ERP implementations, urged strong feedback loops, continuous training and post‑implementation governance. Clark and GFOA staff said documentation, acceptance testing and a final acceptance process are contractually required before payments tied to deliverables are released. City staff will return with further implementation details as the project advances.

Actions taken included a motion to approve the agreements (moved by Councilmember Ward; seconded by Councilmember Wynne) and an electronic roll call; Councilmember Delgadillo recorded a verbal “yes” and the resolution passed unanimously.

The contract approvals delegate authority to the city and county manager to authorize change orders, additional statements of work and amendments within approved budget limits. Staff said additional statements of work (for an integration platform called Bridges and a cashiering/payment solution called Teller) will be brought to the manager for authorization after council’s approval.

The city and county will stage the implementation and monitor training and vendor updates; staff recommended annual reporting on progress and emphasized that the project is intended to preserve institutional knowledge and improve transparency in budgeting and reporting for residents. The project team stressed that failure to modernize would leave the city running on unsupported, spreadsheet‑based systems that are increasingly hard to maintain.

What’s next: staff will begin work under Statement of Work #1 with High Street, advance the additional integration and payment statements of work for manager approval, continue cross‑functional testing and prepare training and acceptance plans. Council will need to appropriate future-year operating funds for ongoing license and maintenance fees as part of annual budgets.