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Kasson City council approves move of Black Mountain software to hosted (cloud) platform; timecard rollout delayed
Summary
Council approved switching the city’s Black Mountain financial and utility software from an on‑premises server to the vendor’s hosted platform, citing staff speed and security benefits. The council agreed to delay moving time‑card functions to the cloud pending implementation details; an annual hosting cost increase was discussed.
Kasson City council voted to move its Black Mountain municipal software from the city’s on‑site server to the vendor’s hosted (cloud) platform, citing faster performance for staff and faster vendor security patching.
The decision matters because staff said the hosted environment substantially reduced transaction times across utility billing and payroll, and the city would stop relying on aging hardware that staff described as a point of failure. City staff also recommended retaining some legacy systems locally during a phased transition and postponing the time‑card module until implementation details were clearer.
Mike (IT vendor) told the council the server in use was nearly five years old and described hardware as a failure risk: “Hardware is 1 of our points of failure. Okay? The idea our job is to make sure the data is available to you guys at a secure in a secure manner. Okay?” He said hosted platforms let software vendors patch and update code centrally, shortening the time between vulnerability discovery and remediation.
A city staff member who presented internal feedback said staff users reported faster processing after a trial move. “When they did billing, it usually takes 2 days. It took 2.5 hours,” the staff member said, citing a recent billing run as an example of the speed improvement.
Council members discussed the scope of the initial purchase and which modules to include. The meeting record shows the council approved the cloud hosting package but agreed to “hold off on the time cards for now and we’ll see what the implementation would be for the BMS pay.” The council also discussed that moving payroll/online bill pay could shift credit‑card fees to customers and that the city would phase in modules to allow public notice and operational adjustments.
During the discussion a recurring implementation cost was cited: moving to cloud hosting would add about $23,000 per year, a figure discussed by council and staff in the meeting documents.
The motion to approve the overall move to the hosted platform carried by voice vote. The council directed staff to proceed with the vendor implementation for the approved modules, keep legacy systems running where needed during transition, and return with details on time‑card implementation and final contract terms before enabling that module.
The city clerk and IT vendor will circulate final implementation schedules and cost details to council and staff ahead of the next regular meeting.
