The Montpelier City Council approved May 21 an award for the city’s managed information-technology services to SimpleRoot, a Vermont-based IT firm, after a March procurement that drew 13 proposals and a multi-stage review.

Finance staff said an internal multi-department selection team evaluated proposals and interviewed four finalists. The team concluded SimpleRoot offered the best municipal fit, citing local presence, municipal experience, disaster recovery plans and a phased equipment-replacement strategy.

The vendor’s representative, Brett Johnson of SimpleRoot, told the council the company intends to bring city-owned hardware and infrastructure back under city ownership where possible, migrate virtual servers off vendor-owned hardware, and push backups to cloud services. Johnson outlined a multi-year equipment-replacement schedule that staff estimated would add roughly $174,000 in year-one capital work and recurring service costs in the range of $232,000 annually.

Staff said the contract is scheduled to begin July 1. The vendor and city will execute a transition plan to transfer services and replace end-of-life equipment identified in the RFP response. Council approved the contract by voice vote.

Finance staff and the selected vendor told the council that some city systems are currently running Windows 10 and end-of-life routers that require replacement before October, and that returning to a city-ownership model for servers and endpoints will reduce vendor lock-in.