Town and schools narrow financial-software search; three vendors set for multi-day demos

Town and school technology and finance staff said they received four proposals in response to a request for proposals for a unified financial and human-resources system and will invite three vendors for multi-day demonstrations and interviews spread over several weeks. Cecilia, who is coordinating the vendor schedule, told the committee the evaluations will group similar modules on the same days so staff can directly compare general ledger, billing and collections, document management and reporting capabilities.

The demonstrations will be held in modules over six days across three weeks; two of the three vendors have already confirmed dates, Cecilia said. The schedule posted to committee participants lists demonstration dates beginning Oct. 30, with additional benchmark dates on Jan. 29, March 26 and May 28 (dates provided in the meeting). Committee members will include town accounting, treasury and utilities staff, payroll and HR staff from the schools, and other end users in the module-by-module reviews.

Committee discussion focused on data migration, legacy-system archiving and evaluation criteria. Staff said the current environment includes multiple systems: a revenue-side product used for about three years, a spending/expenditure system in use since July 2013, and older payroll/legacy data stored on an AS/400-style system that will require archiving. Cecilia and other staff said the town has budgeted the first-year implementation cost in a standalone appropriation already approved by Town Meeting; as modules come online, annual support and operating costs will be folded into subsequent budgets. Staff estimated approximately $200,000 per year in new operating costs as the ongoing net annual expense after phasing out legacy annual fees.

Officials said the RFP required a single contract and single point of contact; one proposer was excluded from further consideration because it proposed multiple reseller contracts rather than a single, direct contract. The committee also discussed how to evaluate vendors on nonfunctional criteria, including financial stability, cloud-hosting arrangements and future product road maps (including AI integration). Staff said two of the responding companies are long-established providers; one is a newer entrant identified as Dynamic Consultants Group. The committee intends to check firms'financial credentials and hosting arrangements as part of the evaluation process.

Cecilia and other staff emphasized that the procurement follows the evaluation criteria published in the RFP and is subject to procurement rules that require scoring vendors according to the stated criteria. Several committee members asked to see evaluation materials and to participate in vendor demonstrations and scoring; staff said the methodology will follow the same approach used in prior revenue procurements.

Implementation will be phased. Staff said migration and final decommissioning of legacy systems cannot occur until all modules and archival work are complete; payroll and long-term record retention needs are a specific constraint. Staff noted the town plans to archive approximately 30 years of records before decommissioning older systems in order to meet public-records retention requirements.

The committee scheduled demo and follow-up meeting dates and asked staff to distribute Outlook invitations and the posted RFP materials to committee members.