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Finance department outlines ERP transition, utility billing improvements and risk management initiatives
Summary
Finance staff described completion of an ERP (Tyler) rollout, steps to improve payroll and budget processes, a proposed bilingual self‑service payment kiosk and ongoing safety and risk management work; staff noted strong reserve levels and affirmed recent audit completion.
Jennifer Larson, chief financial officer, presented the Finance Department’s FY26 budget and highlighted recent accomplishments including completion of a city‑wide rollout of an enterprise payroll and time collection system, progress on implementing Tyler Munis budget and accounting modules, and completion of the FY24 audit engagement.
Larson said the department has added and reorganized several positions to support ERP go‑live, payroll processing and budget planning, and described a multi‑year effort to migrate salary budget preparation into the Tyler system. She reported that pooled investment earnings to date totaled about $4.8 million and that Moody’s affirmed the city’s AA2 general obligation rating in January 2025.
On utility billing, supervisor Chris Valle reported increased customer adoption of online services: more than half of customers now use the portal and autopay enrollment rose to about 40%. Valle described the new Community Impact Service program (launched January) that has helped pay more than $4,500 in past‑due utility balances and noted the department’s interest in expanded outreach and an on‑site or off‑site bilingual payment kiosk for after‑hours cash payments.
Purchasing and risk manager Tony Breitbach reviewed procurement automation, an automated vendor setup to reduce fraud risk, planned e‑procurement implementation and safety committee work. He said the city has instituted incident review and safety audit teams and is moving to an electronic safety audit process to make follow‑up faster. Breitbach described a recent comprehensive review of safety policies and said future work will explore risk‑management software to better track property and certificate‑of‑insurance data.
Council members praised staff for the ERP implementation and audit turnaround. Larson said FY26 budget requests include a recommended bilingual self‑service payment kiosk (one‑time $40,000; recurring software maintenance $8,000, funded by enterprise funds). Council asked several technical questions about earned interest, staffing changes and how the kiosk would be deployed and maintained; staff said details would be provided as the FY26 budget process proceeds.
