Johnson County’s Department of Technology on Jan. 9 presented a recommendation to renew the county’s Microsoft Government Cloud Enterprise Agreement through a contract with Zones Inc., at an amount not to exceed $2,160,715.76 annually for a three‑year term with options to renew.

Bill Nixon said the current three‑year Microsoft agreement expires at the end of January and that staff evaluated several licensing options before selecting “option 3,” which includes advanced security, compliance and phone‑support capabilities. Nixon acknowledged the proposed annual cost represents roughly a 55% increase from the county’s 2022 contract but said the county achieved about a 28% discount from Microsoft list price and that the per‑user cost works out to about $35 per user per month for email, Outlook, Teams and OneDrive.

Nixon said the agreement would enable a strategic migration of the county’s phone system from Cisco to Microsoft Teams over time; the county has a two‑year Cisco agreement in place to support a transition period. He said the contract would cover several county entities — the library, parks, CFD2, Extension Council and ELI — and that those entities will be invoiced directly for their shares; the county will not subsidize their portions.

During questions, commissioners asked why certain resellers had identical pricing; Nixon explained Microsoft sets reseller pricing bands and resellers then decide on their margins. The item was presented for inclusion on the Jan. 16 business session; no vote was taken at the Jan. 9 agenda review.