City proposes midyear transfers for new data center and to buy motor graders; council sends capital items to second reading
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Summary
The council received a first reading on a supplemental appropriation: $1.8 million for a new primary data center at the Public Safety Training Facility and $8 million proposed from general-fund reserves to acquire motor graders now on lease; council set a second reading date and asked for further budget detail.
City finance and operations staff presented a midyear supplemental appropriation request on Aug. 12 that would forward-fund two capital priorities: a new primary data center and the purchase of motor graders currently on multi-year lease.
Sean (Finance) explained the $1.8 million technology transfer would fund a new primary data center at the Public Safety Training Facility (PSTF). Staff said the PSTF is a hardened facility better able to withstand extreme-weather and fiber outages than the current City Hall data center; the plan would convert the City Hall facility into a backup site. Technology purchases would include storage, servers, switches, security and backup systems. The city described recent fiber disruptions and said moving the primary data center would reduce long‑term operational risk.
Mark Kotter, Public Works, presented a proposal to use $8 million of available cash to acquire motor graders that are currently leased. Kotter said the fleet includes machines purchased on 2018 leases that average about 1,500 hours — “like new” — and that the city currently spends roughly $1.7 million a year on leases for 34 graders. Staff said purchasing the existing machines through a competitive bid could provide a payback of roughly 4.7 years at current lease rates and that purchasing would reduce future lease pressure in the general fund. Councilors discussed lifecycle assumptions (staff indicated 15-plus years of service is plausible) and asked for more detail about lease terms, per-hour versus flat payments, maintenance cost and the staged schedule of leases that remain outstanding in later years.
Council voted to set the item for a second reading on Aug. 19; several council members requested more detailed exhibits showing 15-year cost comparisons (buy vs. lease), staging of remaining leases through 2028, and the reserves impact. Councilor Sale said he preferred splitting the item — acting quickly on the data-center funding because of cyber-resilience concerns and deferring the motor‑grader purchase until the budget hearings — and other members recommended bringing additional financial exhibits before final action. Staff agreed to provide an exhibit modeling the long-term costs and the impact on general-fund reserves.
If the council approves the purchases in final readings, staff said they will issue competitive documents that could include 2018-or-newer machines to increase competition and seek to eliminate the last lease payments. For IT, staff said the data-center move is intended to provide a hardened primary site and to reduce the need for repeated emergency backups.
Council set a second reading date and asked administration and finance staff to return with cost comparisons, reserve projections and procurement details for the graders.
