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Council approves move to BSNA cloud financial system; $214,495 implementation, go‑live targeted fall 2026
Summary
The City Council approved up to $214,495 to move Ferndale’s financial management system from BSNA .NET to BSNA Cloud and authorized a FY2026 budget amendment, with staff citing improved security, centralized records and automated reporting as the rationale.
The Ferndale City Council voted to approve the city’s transition of its financial management software from the BSNA .NET platform to BSNA Cloud, authorizing up to $214,495 for implementation and directing the city manager to amend the FY2026 budget to cover the cost.
Vote and action: Council took a roll‑call vote on the motion to approve the implementation and budget amendment. The roll call recorded four votes in favor: Johnson (yes), Polica (yes), Mikulski (yes) and Leaksmae (yes); one council member was absent and excused earlier in the meeting. The motion carried.
Why it matters: City staff said the cloud platform will centralize multiple financial and billing applications, reduce reliance on locally hosted aging servers, improve workflow and user onboarding, provide a knowledge base and in‑app guidance, enable automated reporting for council and departments, and strengthen security (automatic patching, cloud backups and modern multifactor authentication). The finance lead told council the vendor’s first‑year fees are reduced by the dot‑net subscription credit and that the cloud subscription is expected to run about $79,006.70 annually after implementation.
Implementation and timing
City staff outlined a 10–12 month implementation timeline and said BSNA has a queue of municipalities moving to cloud; Ferndale’s target go‑live is by fall 2026 if the implementation begins now. Staff said the project will include a “sandbox” and user‑training period and that workflows should be documented now so the vendor can build them into the cloud implementation.
Budget and recurring costs
The motion authorizes up to $214,495 for the transition (implementation and associated professional services) and allows the city manager to amend the FY2026 budget to reflect the invoices split across implementation milestones. Staff explained the first year includes implementation invoices and an annual subscription credit for dot‑net; the ongoing annual subscription on cloud was presented at approximately $79,006.70.
Next steps and oversight
Staff said they will use the implementation period to document processes, design procurement and approval workflows and set up recurring council reporting dashboards. Council members asked for automated, view‑only dashboard options and recurring budget vs. actual reports for council review.
Ending: Council approved the quote and budget amendment after questions about timeline, user training and recurring reporting capabilities. Staff said they will continue implementation planning and return to finance committee as details are refined.
