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Council reviews capital program, considers Human Capital Management upgrade as county prepares bond sale
Summary
Committee discussed the county capital program, including an $82 million general obligation bond authorization and a $600,000 capital request to restart a Human Capital Management project to replace PeopleSoft.
New Castle County officials briefed the Administrative Finance Committee on the capital program and an associated technology project on June 10 as the county prepared to enter the municipal bond market.
Councilmember John Cartier and others reviewed a resolution authorizing the sale of up to $82 million in general obligation bonds to finance capital projects. Staff noted the county’s AAA bond rating and said the timing was favorable to borrow for planned projects.
A focused discussion followed on the Human Capital Management (HCM) platform included in the capital program. Dave Del Grama, chief of Technology and Administrative Services, described the county’s long-running effort to replace PeopleSoft, which the county has used for payroll and personnel records since the 1990s. Del Grama said maintaining PeopleSoft currently costs the county about $358,000 per year (licensing/maintenance and contracted support) and that reverting to Oracle support could raise annual costs further.
Del Grama told the committee that an earlier attempt to migrate PeopleSoft functions onto the county’s new Tyler Munis financial platform was halted under an earlier administration; work completed by the vendor was deleted after the project was frozen and the implementation would now need to essentially start over. The current proposal in the capital program allocates $600,000 over two years for planning, an RFP and project management to replace PeopleSoft and seek a modern HCM solution; Del Grama said the RFP would include options for public-facing features that could incorporate AI-assisted functionality.
Council members asked technical and procurement questions. Councilman Carter asked whether the county would move to a different relational database and how new software would integrate with existing systems; Del Grama replied the procurement (RFP) will determine the product and integration approach and that the RFP will return to council for review. Councilman Street asked how this bond issuance compared with previous bond sales; a council member later provided that the last bond sale in 2021 was $100 million.
No committee-level vote on issuing bonds or the capital program is recorded in the committee transcript; the matters were presented for committee review and will proceed to the full County Council as part of the capital and bond ordinance package.
Ending: County technology and budget staff said they will prepare an RFP and project-management plan and that the capital program and bond authorizing ordinances will move forward to the council for final action.
