Salt Lake City IMS seeks modest budget rise as communications, subscriptions drive costs

The Information Management Services (IMS) department presented the council with a proposed fiscal-year budget of $43,052,934 and outlined changes in staffing, contracts and centralized communications.

The budget, the department said, represents a roughly $2.5 million increase (about 6%) from the prior year, “in part from the citywide 4% cost of living adjustment for employees and the new employees that were approved in the past fiscal year,” and “about $1,300,000 in contractual increases,” Kira Luke, City Council member, told the chamber while introducing the IMS presentation.

IMS staff said much of the contractual increase reflects software-as-a-service subscriptions, though they reported vendor negotiations that reduced some year-over-year growth in those costs. “We’ve worked very hard, to work with vendors and set proper expectations as well as to look at, low cost options or better cost solutions for technology,” John Rand (director, Web and Media Services) told the council, describing a move from more expensive Adobe licenses to Canva to save money while maintaining design capacity.

Why it matters: IMS oversees the city’s internal technology, networks, data and public-facing digital communications. Council members pressed staff about how the department will use…