Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Sammamish staff outline ERP upgrade, emergency communications and a multi‑year program‑based budgeting proposal
Summary
Finance and administrative staff described a planned ERP/financial system replacement (approx. $360,000 reported for recent work), emergency management coordination (including FirstNet/Starlink options) and a proposal to adopt multi‑year, performance‑based budgeting with service‑level definitions to guide future tradeoffs.
City staff updated councilmembers on technology, emergency management and a multi‑year budgeting framework that would shift the city toward performance‑based decisions.
Finance director Vicky Carlson described ongoing work to replace or upgrade financial systems and noted the city’s structural constraints on discretionary revenue. Staff reported an approximate $360,000 cost for a recent financial‑system update and compared that to earlier implementations that were reported at higher costs; they said the ERP work is a first step toward better program budgeting. IT staff flagged a large permanent system replacement ahead and noted communications considerations for emergency management; staff referenced FirstNet and Starlink as possible satellite options for resilient connectivity.
A councilmember proposed moving from activity‑based to program‑ or performance‑based budgeting over several years, creating a service portfolio and defining service levels (core/critical/discretionary) so the city can make transparent tradeoffs and link budget decisions to measurable outcomes. Councilmembers asked staff for a written explanation of program‑based budgeting and an estimate of the staff time and costs required to develop the framework so the council can determine whether to schedule study sessions or smaller subgroup meetings.
Staff agreed to provide a written overview of program‑based budgeting, cost and staffing estimates for the work, and to recommend a process (twos-and‑threes working groups versus full study sessions) to refine the proposal.
