Scott County staff to begin negotiations with Tyler Technologies for jail management and permitting software

County IT staff told supervisors on Jan. 13 that, after a three-stage procurement process, they plan to begin contract negotiations with Tyler Technologies for the county's jail management system and to open negotiations with Tyler for enterprise permitting and licensing software.

"We actually went through essentially three rounds. So we did an RFP. We got 10 responses... Once we brought those vendors on-site, we did additional reference checks... taking all of that information into consideration, we came up with Tyler Technologies as the most efficient JMS vendor for the county," an IT representative said.

Staff said the community development software negotiations moved away from the first-ranked vendor, HS GovTech, because that product "did not work the way that we had hoped" and was not implementable. The county attorney's office reviewed the situation and staff said there was no legal barrier to stopping negotiations with the first vendor because no contract had been signed.

Board members asked whether these items were only for negotiations, and staff confirmed that final contracts will return to the board for approval. One supervisor thanked staff for strengthening the memorandum explaining the selection and noted that, under Iowa rules, competition is required but there is an exception for professional and architectural services; staff said the memorandum documented their justification for selecting the vendor.

No formal vote or contract award was recorded at the committee meeting; staff described the items as the start of negotiations for large projects.