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Milwaukee delays Workday rollout to September 2026, estimates about $2.4 million added cost
Summary
City officials told the finance committee they need a three-month extension for the Workday ERP go-live because of complex integrations, payroll and bargaining changes, and staff turnover; the shift would raise project costs by roughly $2.4 million and require carryover funding.
David Henke, the city's chief information officer, told the Common Council's finance committee that the enterprise resource planning replacement project'moving the city from PeopleSoft to Workday'cannot meet a planned June go-live and that the executive committee is recommending a three-month extension to September 2026.
Henke said the delay stems from a cluster of issues that emerged over recent months: complex integrations with third-party systems, changes in federal payroll and tax reporting requirements, several recently implemented bargaining agreements and new departments and salary changes, and turnover among key staff and some of the city's implementation partners. "We had estimated a go live date of June this year," Henke said, "and our recommendation from the executive committee is to extend the go live date to September 2026." He added, "Should we have gone live in June, to move to September, it's $25,000,000. So you'll see that's about a $2,400,000 cost to do that."
Budget staff and the comptroller said the additional cost can be handled with carryover funds in the Department of Administration but warned that the project already exceeds the budgeted level for 2026 by about $1,150,000. The budget director emphasized the tradeoff between speed and cost: "The sooner we do it, the less it costs," he said, while also warning that hurrying could incur greater long-term expenses if errors occur. Comptroller Christensen and department leads stressed that the extension is intended to raise confidence in payroll testing and data conversion, noting payroll will be run in parallel in Workday and PeopleSoft to verify results before go-live.
Committee members pressed project leaders about risks, staff burnout and contingency plans. Christensen said the city has brought on additional consultants when appropriate but warned that new contractors also require ramp-up time. Employee-relations staff reiterated that extending the timeline may ease some pressure but will not eliminate the sustained workload for the core team.
The committee placed the update on file for follow-up; project leaders said they will request carryover funding in the next committee cycle and provide additional updates and fund-transfer requests at the committee meeting in three weeks.
