City staff preview ClearGov budgeting software; purchase proposed using ARPA funds
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Summary
City staff presented ClearGov, a cloud-based budgeting and budget-book tool, as the recommended budgeting software. Staff says roughly $125,000 in remaining ARPA funds would cover the first two years; ClearGov integrates with Springbrook and is hosted on AWS, the presenter said.
City staff and a ClearGov representative gave an overview of the ClearGov budgeting platform and recommended using remaining ARPA funds to purchase the software.
The staff presentation said approximately $125,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds remain and that the city proposes to use that money to pay for ClearGov. The staff presentation said the ARPA balance should cover the first two years of the ClearGov subscription.
Michael Horpe, senior solutions adviser for ClearGov, described the product’s four main modules — capital planning, personnel (payroll and benefits modeling), operational budgeting and an interactive online budget book — and demonstrated how the platform can produce PDF and web-based budget books with narrative and charts. Horpe said ClearGov supports multi‑year capital improvement plans and personnel scenario modeling, and that it can import data from common local government accounting systems.
When asked about hosting, Horpe said, “We are AWS web based. We do not take up any space on your servers.” He also said ClearGov can push and pull data from the city’s Springbrook accounting system.
Staff explained the purchase decision followed a committee review of four software packages and that ClearGov was selected based on price and functionality. Staff emphasized that ClearGov would be used for budgeting and budget presentation and would not replace the city’s meeting minutes/recording software.
Horpe said ClearGov assigns a client success manager to help with training and transitions so data and workflows transfer if staff change.
There was no formal purchase vote recorded in the provided transcript excerpt. Staff said the item was a preview and that next steps would include contract review and any required formal approvals.
