County IT director urges process assessments and earlier budgeting for custom software
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Summary
Information Systems told the committee that compressed budget timelines limit the county’s ability to scope custom development and recommended earlier assessments and prioritization; staff proposed consolidating overlapping platforms and adding a security analyst.
Jeff Hassett (Information Systems) told commissioners that Davis County currently relies heavily on custom software development and that the July 31 budget submission timeline leaves roughly four weeks to scope requests, a window he described as too short for adequate process or vendor assessments.
Hassett said the county’s development approach often begins from general requests and scopes as the project proceeds, which risks scope creep and leaves projects without reliable effort estimates. "Thirty days is not a reasonable timeline to do process assessment, then a solutions assessment and put a budget to it," he said, and recommended starting assessments in February–March to allow procurement, RFPs and realistic budgeting.
He urged the county to inventory current platforms before adding new tools and to prioritize consolidation where feasible — citing cashiering and finance modules as examples of functionality that could be consolidated to reduce duplicated development and integration costs.
On staffing, Hassett noted the IS payroll includes one new security analyst post already reflected in projections and emphasized ongoing training investments for technical staff. Commissioners and staff discussed mechanisms to centralize multi‑department software costs and possible allocation models to improve transparency and accountability.
No formal motions were made during the session. Follow‑up items include prioritizing a calendar for process assessments and reviewing which software modules should be centralized versus maintained at the departmental level.