Pinellas County leaders outline Workday ERP selection, $22M plan and phased rollout

Pinellas County officials on Aug. 28 told commissioners they have selected Workday as the county’s next enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and outlined a phased, cloud-based implementation that county staff said will be one-time capital spending and will run alongside legacy systems during conversion.

County presenters said the decision followed an extensive request-for-proposal process and a unanimous recommendation from an eight-person evaluation team. ‘‘All eight people … voted on Workday unanimously as the best choice,’’ said Barry (staff member), who led the presentation and identified project leadership and subject-area evaluators. The project director, Anous Sarin, was named as the external implementation lead.

The county’s presentation said the current Oracle-based system has been in place for 15 years, contains many manual and redundant processes and is no longer sustainable. Officials described the new approach as cloud-based, designed to integrate HR, finance, procurement, budgeting and other modules now handled by several different software packages.

Why it matters: The ERP touches personnel, payroll, purchasing and other core county operations; presenters called it the county’s ‘‘spine’’ for technology and operations. Staff told commissioners the new system should reduce manual processing, improve reporting, and deliver longer-term efficiencies while requiring a significant short-term investment.

Costs, staffing and schedule: The presentation included a conservative financial projection of roughly $22 million for the Workday implementation versus an estimated $26 million to maintain the current legacy approach over time. Staff said the plan anticipates saving the equivalent of approximately 11 full-time positions over time but emphasized savings would come through attrition and reorganization rather than immediate layoffs. Temporary ‘‘backfill’’ hires paid from the project budget will be used during the implementation phase.

County staff cautioned commissioners that phased cutover is required: portions of the legacy system must remain active while data are converted and modules are brought live. Jeff Rohrs (executive director, Business Technology Services) told the board staff plan to convert needed data by phase and use business intelligence tools for archival reporting rather than keeping the legacy system in daily use.

Data integrity and change management: Commissioners raised concerns about payroll and historical records during conversion. Dr. Flowers (commenter) asked whether legacy data would remain accessible; Rohrs said the project’s strategy is data conversion for required records and archiving data that are not needed in daily operations. He added retention schedules required by state law will guide how much historical data are retained. Presenters said a robust change-management program is planned, and that project staffing will come from a mix of internal staff and project-funded temporary hires.

Next steps: Staff said the implementation contract was negotiated only recently and that the county will present a specific financing plan tied to the budget process. Officials described the ERP cost as a one‑time capital-style project that will draw from reserves or one-time funding rather than recurring general fund operating money.

Ending: Commissioners were asked to consider the project while the county finalizes the financing plan; staff said they will return with a detailed capital and implementation budget ahead of final budget adoption.