Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Digital Modernization topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
City manager pitches digital modernization for grants, procurement and asset tracking
Summary
City Manager Charlie said the city will pursue consolidated digital systems for procurement, grants, contracts and asset management to fix recurring reporting failures and improve transparency.
City Manager Charlie said the city will pursue a multi-year digital modernization effort to centralize procurement, grants management, contract administration and asset/GIS tracking.
Charlie said the effort responds to an FY24 audit finding and repeated examples in which the city failed to draw down grant funds or complete required reporting — including, he said, an outstanding reimbursement of about $700,000 for a Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) project. "Before we can give you the next grant, you've got to do the quarterly reporting for the last four years," he said.
The manager described systems under consideration — including products from CivicPlus and OpenGov — and said staff will seek cooperative purchasing through Sourcewell and competitive bids for implementation. He estimated roughly $20,000 in professional services to implement a consolidated system and said recurring annual software fees could be material; a separate comment in the meeting named Cassell at about $3,800 per month.
Charlie also described asset-management use cases: GIS mapping of water distribution assets, facilities and hydrant maintenance workflows, and digital work-order and preventive-maintenance schedules. He said the systems would improve transparency, enable automatic reporting and reduce reliance on individual employees’ institutional knowledge.
The manager said he expects to present more detailed recommendations and cost estimates to council during the November budget process and proposed demonstrations for the Finance Committee.
