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Thornton moves ahead with Workday payroll; larger financial system replacement put on hold
Summary
After vendor bids exceeded the original budget, city staff told the council they will proceed with replacing Thornton’s payroll system using Workday and defer the larger financial (ERP) replacement until fiscal conditions improve.
City staff told the Thornton City Council that the payroll replacement will proceed using Workday but the broader financial enterprise resource planning (ERP) replacement will be held until the city’s fiscal outlook is clearer.
Brett Henry, identified as the executive sponsor for the project, said the vendor and implementation estimates for replacing both payroll and financial systems ranged from about $2.3 million to more than $4 million, and that detailed implementation scoping pushed total estimated costs for both systems to about $4 million. "Long story short, we went through all that, tallying everything up. This turned into about a $4,000,000 total price tag," he said.
Henry said the city has funding to cover a payroll replacement within the FY2025 budget and recommended moving forward with payroll only. "Payroll will be Workday solution. Yes," he said. The city will pause replacement of the financial system (JD Edwards) and revisit that decision in the 2026 budget process or later depending on revenue performance.
Staff explained that combined implementations save money on integrations and contingency; splitting the projects would add roughly $1.7 million in additional cost. They also emphasized the implementation workload and third-party integrations (banking, payroll feeds) and noted municipalities that had implemented similar systems reported substantial staff time and supplement costs.
No formal council vote was recorded; staff described the payroll decision as an administrative direction and said they will present the financial system replacement in a future budget cycle if conditions warrant.
