County approves multi‑year ERP rollout to replace aging finance, HR and asset systems

The Imperial County Board of Supervisors on May 6 approved a multi‑year plan to implement a commercial enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from Tyler Technologies and to hire Coahuil (Koah) Hills Consulting as project manager.

The measure, approved by motion and recorded in the meeting as "motion carries," funds a roughly $6.8 million program to implement finance, human resources/payroll and enterprise asset management modules in three phases, with a projected final go‑live in January 2029. County staff plan to use a previously approved reserve for most of the cost and tap a small balance from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund.

County Deputy CEO Myra Redmond, who presented the proposal, told the board the ERP will replace multiple stand‑alone systems and manual workflows used across departments and enable enterprise reporting, streamlined purchasing and grants management, and online customer payment options. "ERP stands for enterprise Resource Planning and is basically a software system that integrates various functions into one complete system to streamline processes and information across the entire organization," Redmond said during her presentation.

Henry Felix, the county's information technology services manager, described the project as "the single largest undertaking" the county could undertake for its information systems and said a conservative multi‑year timeline reflected the complexity of replacing the fiscal system while keeping operations running. "Changing out the fiscal system is exceptionally difficult," Felix said. He noted other agencies' implementations often take multiple years and that the county's small staff will require outside subject‑matter experts to sustain operations during conversion.

PARS' presenters and other speakers during the meeting had previously described the county's OPEB and pension liabilities; board members said getting current financial and payroll data sooner would improve decision making. Supervisor Ryan Kelly, who moved the approval, called the project a long‑sought upgrade and cited the benefits of faster access to financial actuals and reduced duplicate data entry.

County staff estimated elimination of several paid third‑party systems would offset a portion of the new annual licensing cost; Redmond and staff told the board those savings were included in the fiscal analysis in the board letter, although the full realization of savings depends on the timing of system retirements and staff transition. Redmond said some legacy systems identified for retirement include CenterSquare (budgeting), Questica, PlanetBids and CAMS.

The board authorized a first amendment to the county's contract with Tyler Technologies to add the three modules, and approved a professional services contract with Koah Hills Consulting for project management and subject‑matter expertise. The motion passed by voice vote recorded in the minutes as "motion carries."