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City moves ahead with Advanced utility-billing conversion, contracts Mountain River for data work
Summary
City staff told the Public Works and Utilities Committee that the Advanced utility billing project remains on track for an October 2026 finish but will use a sole-source contract with Mountain River for critical data conversion and interface work estimated at $500,000; funding will come from reallocated phase‑2 money and contract savings.
At a Public Works and Utilities Committee meeting on Sept. 2, 2025, Nancy Jimenez, Utility Billing Division director, told councilors the Advanced utility billing replacement remains on schedule to finish in October 2026 and that the city plans to hire Mountain River to handle complex data conversion and interface mapping.
The timeline and contracting choices matter because staff said accurate data mapping is critical to avoid billing errors during conversion. "Currently, the project ends October 2026, and we are still on schedule for, the project completing," Jimenez said.
Jimenez said the city has completed functional requirements and is now focused on conversion, configuration and testing. She said the city moved from Advanced version 4 to version 5 and from on‑premises hosting to cloud hosting. The city is also adding mobile device management to automate service-order workflows.
"Mountain River, the contract is, it's 500,000 for data conversion. It's 150,000 for interface mapping and testing. And then there's another 500,000, which is not the advanced project, but the current system and making sure they can help with maintaining the current system," Jimenez said, describing the vendor work the city plans to buy to reduce conversion risk.
Jimenez said the $500,000 conversion contract and the $150,000 interface work will be covered without a new budget request by shifting money already allocated for a planned phase 2 of the Advanced project and by applying savings from reducing Advanced's contracted project management and conversion responsibilities. "So we have funding that will be, it's approximately $480,000 that will decrease in the advanced contract," she said.
Councilor Lee Garcia asked for clarification about the funding approach and was told the phase‑2 money would be repurposed to cover the Mountain River work and that the $480,000 reduction in the Advanced contract would offset part of the cost.
Councilor Michael Garcia pressed on the parallel run and long‑term maintenance. He asked whether the parallel run covers two full months and whether the city will still need contracts and maintenance after go‑live. Jimenez said staff expects parallel operations to begin in June and run through about mid‑September and confirmed that ongoing maintenance and cloud hosting costs will remain in the budget after go‑live. "There is a maintenance component that will continue to happen, you know, with really any system that you have," she said, noting IT and finance staff will continue to be involved.
Jimenez said the conversion problem the city faces is not a scheduling issue alone but a knowledge gap about the legacy AS/400 data fields and how third‑party interfaces interpret those fields. She said Mountain River has specialized expertise with that legacy data and third‑party integrations—Munison and Badger were mentioned as example interfaces—and that the sole‑source approach reduces the risk of incorrect mapping.
Councilor Castro requested a contractor history for Mountain River; staff agreed to provide that information in a follow‑up.
No formal action or vote on contracting was taken at the committee meeting; staff described the proposed sole‑source procurement and funding approach and said they will proceed with contract steps and continued testing and training. Jimenez said staff plans to start staff training "potentially, sometime in May" before go‑live and that Advanced will provide long‑term hosting and upgrades.
What happens next: staff will finalize the Mountain River contract details, continue configuration and testing, schedule training, and begin parallel operations to validate data and workflows before full migration to the new Advanced cloud system.
