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Newport council hires NEMREC for cloud migration, backup and interim financial-systems consulting
Summary
To improve reporting and address an $884,568 deficit noted in audits, the Newport City Council voted to contract NEMREC for cloud migration, off-site backups, and interim financial-systems consulting; the council also instructed staff to be prepared to warn a special election for long-term borrowing.
The Newport City Council voted April 30 to engage NEMREC for an off-site cloud migration of the city's numeric/accounting system and to authorize off-site encrypted backups and interim financial-systems consulting. The council also passed a motion to be prepared to warn a special election for long-term borrowing if needed to address the city's cash-flow and accumulated deficit issues.
Carter Finnegan, chair of the Financial Reporting and Fiscal Practices Task Force, said the move aims to modernize the city's 1996-era accounting setup, produce clearer balance-sheet and cash-flow reporting, and enable targeted consulting to clean up the chart of accounts. The task force recommended a three-part approach: (1) move accounting to a cloud-hosted instance managed by NEMREC, (2) sign a disaster-recovery agreement for encrypted off-site backup, and (3) purchase bulk consulting hours for focused cleanup work.
Task force members outlined expected setup costs: a one-time transition fee of about $750, an ongoing $20 per-user-per-month fee (estimated 10-12 users -> about $200-$250/month), and a disaster-recovery subscription around $500 per year. Carter said those costs were reasonable given the potential to surface previously unrecorded activity and produce usable reports the council needs to govern.
City staff expressed concern about vendor downtime and mitigation. Council members discussed local mitigations such as maintaining a local backup appliance or retaining a single local machine as a short-term "sacred" server during cutover, and making training part of the contract. "There was a couple of hour glitch this morning where something happened to interrupt their system," the clerkwarned, prompting discussions about uptime guarantees and local backup appliances.
In a separate motion, the council authorized the mayor to execute an off-site backup arrangement and approved engaging NEMREC for interim financial-systems consulting to clean chart-of-account issues and produce more accessible reports for council oversight. The council also voted to be prepared to warn a special election for long-term borrowing, acknowledging that voter approval is required for long-term debt.
Next steps: staff will finalize agreements with NEMREC, implement the migration plan and training, and the finance committee will work with staff to develop the scope and timeline for any needed borrowing and potential ballot language. The consultant will prioritize producing standard, repeatable budget-to-actual and cash-flow reports for regular council review.
