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Davis County IT budget trimmed on paper even as software and telecom costs rise
Summary
Information Systems staff told the Davis County Budget Committee that accounting reclassifications and a January reorganization reduce the IS budget on paper to about $9.2 million for 2026, but the department expects increased recurring costs for GIS, hosted Munis services and telecommunications tied to new facilities.
Jeff, an Information Systems presenter for Davis County, told the Budget Committee the department’s overall budget shows a modest decline from 2025 to 2026 after a January reorganization and object-code reclassification.
He said the department’s anticipated 2025 budget of about $9.6 million was reclassified to roughly $9.3 million after staff changes and is projected at about $9.2 million for 2026. “We were lucky that the byproduct of that was actually to cut some budget money, about $300,000 a year from our payroll,” Jeff said, adding that the savings were incidental to realigning roles.
The presentation emphasized that much of the apparent increase in software spending is an accounting shift rather than a set of new purchases. Jeff said software previously budgeted across six object-code buckets — subscriptions, contracts, maintenance, and even “subs and memberships” — was consolidated. “Please do not think that we have just bought over $1,000,000 of software. We have just reclassified,” he said, noting software subscription totals moved from about $250,000 to $1.7 million after reclassification.
At the same time, Jeff warned of specific recurring cost increases tied to county projects: a new emergency operations center (EOC) will add about $30,000 a year in telecommunications because it requires independent lines; the county expects Esri (the GIS vendor) will require roughly an extra $25,000 (moving from $150,000 to about $175,000); and moving to a hosted cloud Munis instance will raise the Munis contract by about $140,000 a year.
To offset vendor- and contract-driven increases, Jeff said IS has cut training budgets and pursued targeted savings, including negotiating outside state contracts when feasible. He gave an example of saving roughly 20% — about $100,000 — on a recent network upgrade by negotiating beyond the state contract.
Jeff also described operational actions to contain costs: reducing underused printers, moving toward a one-device-per-person policy to lower maintenance and replacement costs, and assessing device needs before rolling out new equipment. He said a high replacement cycle for end-user devices — driven by pandemic hiring and remote-work equipment in 2021 — will require spending down part of the IS fund balance to smooth peaks in replacements.
The presentation included cybersecurity notes: after a cyber incident at a neighboring county, the department and its vendor (SentinelOne) reviewed configurations and controls. Jeff said the review reinforced the need to maintain current protections.
Next steps the department described include starting the Munis hosted migration process this year with a planned spring go‑live and continuing vendor negotiations and license reviews. Committee members asked questions about timing, licensing differences between Google and Microsoft, and systems that cannot be centralized into one cashiering platform. The meeting closed with no formal vote on these items.
The Budget Committee did not adopt a formal motion on the IS budget in this meeting; staff will proceed with vendor negotiations, implementation planning for cloud and Munis migration, and other operational steps described during the presentation.
