Wayne County leaders brief commissioners on Oracle (Connect 43) rollout, costs and stabilization plan

Wayne County financial leaders gave commissioners a detailed briefing on the county’s multiyear Oracle modernization project, Connect 43, describing the timeline, early results, outstanding issues and next steps.

John Wallace, the county’s chief financial officer and executive project sponsor, traced the project to an RFP issued in 2016, implementation starts in 2019 and COVID-related delays. Wallace said the county pushed HCM (human capital/payroll) go-live from an earlier target to July 1, 2024, to reduce risk and ensure payroll stability. He told the commission that since HCM went live the county has processed roughly 72,000 payroll payments, with approximately 97% successful and the remainder handled manually.

Mike Jamieson, Connect 43 program director, described the four-platform purchase (HCM for HR/payroll, ERP for financials, EPM for budget planning, and ADW as the data warehouse). He said the county is in a post-go-live stabilization phase focused on data integrity, performance, reporting, user adoption and training. Jamieson explained the support model: an internal PMO plus managed services and Oracle SME contracts to address production issues and ongoing quarterly Oracle updates.

Jamieson acknowledged expected and unexpected challenges: underestimated resourcing needs, data gaps in benefits and projects modules, reporting performance problems and a significant payroll overpayment last year that led the team to add automated pre-payroll checks. To address workload shortfalls, the county used staff augmentation (named contractors in the transcript include Pierce Monroe and third-party implementers) and extended managed-service arrangements while building internal capacity to operate and support Oracle.

On costs, Jamieson presented a breakdown distinguishing implementation versus ongoing expenses and said implementation and staff/resource costs comprised the largest shares. He offered an estimate for recurring annual maintenance — primarily managed services and Oracle licensing — of about $6,000,000, noting this is an estimate based on current information. Commissioners pressed for a definitive final project cost separated from ongoing support; Jamieson committed to a formal project closeout and postmortem after the remaining ADW work is finished (he estimated 2–3 months after contract approval) and to provide a clear breakout of pure project expenditures vs ongoing costs.

Several operational topics remain unresolved. Commission and departmental staff raised repeated concerns about delays in purchase order and non-PO (voucher) processing; Jamieson said these are stabilization-phase workflow issues tied to training, ticketing and departmental coders in the new routing workflows and pledged follow-up research into specific holds. Procurement staff and commissioners flagged a mismatch between Oracle contract numbering and the legacy TCM numbering scheme; interim procurement director Travis Crubb said the county is developing new workflows, will provide training to commission staff, and plans phased routing changes ahead of full Oracle contracting this fiscal year.

Commissioners also asked about corrected 2024 W-2s: administration said an outsourced review is ongoing and they expect a file back for county review by the end of the week to identify affected employees. In public comment, an accounts-receivable employee, Audreka Grandison, told the commission that many front-line employees were not consulted during implementation, described a sense of alienation from management and consultants, and warned that morale and retention have suffered.

Jamieson and Wallace repeatedly framed the work as moving from implementation into optimization: finish the financial data warehouse (ADW), perform a postmortem closeout, wind down some augmentation contracts over time, and continue training and change-management activities so departments and vendors can use Oracle effectively. They emphasized that certain costs (notably licensing) are nonnegotiable, while other managed services decisions will balance bringing work in-house versus outsourcing for scalability and expertise.

The briefing closed with commitments from administration to deliver the ADW contract for approval, return to the commission with a postmortem that separates project and ongoing costs, provide procurement and contract-numbering training to commission staff, investigate AP workflow holds delaying payments, and update employees on the status of corrected W-2 work.