County project leads briefed supervisors June 25 on a proposed change order that would add roughly 12–14 weeks and about $450,000 in contracted services to the county’s enterprise financial and payroll system implementation.

Scope and rationale: James Sails (board office) and Bill Horning (IT director) said the additional time will let vendors and county leads build a new test tenant, load current data, run focused testing on recently redesigned financial data models (FDM), and complete cutover planning in advance of a targeted October go‑live. Project leads described the extra time as an opportunity to increase confidence in configuration and reduce the risk of launching an unstable system.

Why it matters: The project affects county financial management, payroll and capital management processes and has been financed in part with ARPA technology funds. Staff said they will review fund sources and ARPA fund balances over the coming weeks to assess whether the change-order amount can be absorbed or should be backfilled from other reserves.

Board questions and staff response: Supervisors asked whether staff morale or contractor relationships were strained by the extension; project leads said the pause gave teams time to work on the FDM redesign and reduced immediate stress by avoiding a rushed July go-live. Staff described forthcoming cutover-window planning and the need for a six-week blackout period during final conversion to avoid extensive catch-up work.

Next steps: Staff said they will present the change‑order for formal approval at the next meeting and will provide additional financial detail on ARPA fund balances and potential backfill options.