Keene committee approves $93,557 for OpenGov permitting platform and authorizes contract change order

Community Development Director Paul Andres and Rick Wood, the city's fire marshal and chief building official, presented a proposal to implement a cloud permitting and inspections platform from OpenGov after a planned FEMA grant match was no longer available. Andres said the city requested $33,000 in next year’s budget for a grant match that was rescinded and asked the committee to authorize $93,557 from personnel vacancy savings for year-one implementation and professional services.

Rick Wood described user-facing benefits: account-based applicant access, online payments, a dashboard showing application status, and interdepartmental workflows tied to the city’s Cartograph asset-management system. "As a user, the nice thing for me is, you go on Amazon and you buy something... In this system, we get to actually have the workflow customized by us," Wood said.

The committee voted unanimously to recommend that the city manager be authorized to expend $93,557 from FY2025 Community Development personnel funds to purchase the OpenGov permitting platform. It also voted unanimously to recommend the city manager negotiate and execute a change order to the city's existing OpenGov contract to include the cloud permitting platform. Staff estimated a roughly eight-month implementation timeline to go live after contract execution and noted ongoing annual costs would continue after the first year.

Committee discussion included questions on existing systems (Iwerks), Cartograph integration, whether OpenGov’s other modules might be used in future, and the incremental annual cost compared with the current contract. Staff said the first-year cost covers implementation and professional services and that incremental savings may appear in subsequent years.