Dearborn Heights city officials reviewed a proposal June 17 to move the city’s BS&A municipal software from on‑premises .NET servers to BS&A’s cloud platform, with staff saying the one‑time implementation cost could be about $172,740 and annual fees could rise to roughly $175,650.

The proposal, presented at a study session by Director Matthew Cooper, focused on operational benefits — a single, integrated database; faster access for staff and residents; real‑time notifications; and consolidated GIS layers — and on security and budget implications. "This is going to take time. It is gonna take a lot of work," Director Matthew Cooper said as he described implementation and training needs.

Why it matters: council members and staff said the migration would touch nearly every department (finance, assessor, building inspections, utilities and courts), change daily workflows and require money in the current and next fiscal years. Staff suggested using water fund money for the utility‑billing portion and recommended spreading implementation payments across two fiscal years to soften the budget impact.

Most important facts

- Costs: Cooper told the council the vendor’s most recent quote lists a one‑time implementation figure of roughly $172,740 and annual cloud fees of about $175,650. Cooper said the city currently pays about $60,000 per year to maintain the local .NET environment.

- Proposed pacing and payments: Staff discussed a potential schedule that splits the vendor’s quoted one‑time fees across fiscal years — an initial vendor payment (quoted at about $58,009.35) followed by a later payment (about $113,008) — and targeting an August 2026 go‑live to avoid the tax season. Cooper said much of the training would occur in the earlier fiscal year and that the city could try to move initial implementation costs into the current year.

- Funding sources and offsets: Cooper identified about $131,000 of internal budget items (repairs, contractual services and other line items across general government and department budgets) as potential reallocation sources to cover initial costs. He also proposed charging a portion of the project to the water fund because utility billing represents about 19% of the annual cloud cost (utility‑billing annual share quoted at about $33,948.50). Maryann (city staff) reported the city is expected to receive an approximately $770,000 MMRMA reimbursement but that the recommendation is to keep those funds in that reserve rather than spend them this fiscal year.

- Security and compliance: Cooper said BS&A’s cloud hosting uses Microsoft Azure and that the vendor claims conformance with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework; Cooper also emphasized that "we still own the data" and that the vendor may only access it for support. He told the council the city would retain responsibility for user access and multi‑factor authentication.

- Operational benefits described: Cooper and staff said a cloud implementation would provide a single database (eliminating multiple separate .NET databases), configurable user workspaces and dashboards, real‑time inspection notifications, built‑in workflow automation and enhanced GIS layering for multiple departments.

What council members and residents asked or urged

Council members pressed about budget timing and whether the city could trim other accounts; Councilman Saab and others said they did not want to reduce money for the district court. Councilman Armand asked whether staff could find alternatives; Cooper said staff would revisit options and supply more GL account proposals. Cooper told the council he could prepare alternate reallocation scenarios if members flagged accounts to avoid.

Security and continuity questions came from residents and staff. A resident, Angela of Dwight Street, asked, "Why do we have to pay to look up things on BS&A when a lot of cities don't?" Cooper explained that municipalities that continue to offer free public property lookups were generally grandfathered under older contracts and that the vendor now charges for online access unless a municipality chooses otherwise.

Assessor Kim Colmer, who spoke during public comment, said assessors statewide use BS&A for statutory compliance and said other options to satisfy state assessing requirements are limited. "I will say there is no other software that is compliant with state regulations for the assessing office," Colmer said, adding that cloud features would help the assessor exchange permit and ownership changes with other departments faster.

Vendor comments

Dominic, a BS&A representative, told the council the company serves more than 600 customers across 21 states and that over 400 of those customers are in Michigan. He said the vendor follows state CPI guidelines when calculating annual increases and that the quoted discount being discussed would be honored for a limited period (vendor told staff the discount was good for about 120 days from the proposal date).

Discussion versus decisions

- Discussion only: Council discussion focused on timing, budget sources and training scope; residents raised questions about public access fees and outages.

- Direction to staff: Council asked staff to provide a more detailed set of budget reallocation options, to return with grant or other external funding possibilities, and to supply additional vendor pricing and escalation history. Cooper said he would share the vendor’s contract details and a more detailed plan to train staff and stage implementation.

- No formal action: The council did not vote on or formally approve a contract or budget amendment at the study session.

Background and next steps

Cooper said BS&A has been moving customers from its older .NET products to a cloud platform and that continuing to run the legacy .NET will likely become more expensive over time. Staff recommended careful planning, phased payments and a training plan to limit cost and operational disruption. Cooper and other staff asked council members to review the proposed GL account changes and return recommended exceptions; Cooper said staff would circulate more detailed budget options and vendor escalation history for follow‑up.

Ending

The study session closed with staff and vendor representatives available for follow‑up; staff said they would return to council with refined budget scenarios, training and implementation timelines and additional vendor documentation on pricing increases and cybersecurity compliance.