Boise City leaders outline FY27 priorities, stress ERP planning, tech upgrades and staff supports

Boise City department directors presented the administration's FY27 priorities during a budget workshop following the noon council meeting.

The workshop centered on a citywide push to modernize core systems and shore up staffing. Eric Delamoria, the city's chief financial officer, said the proposed budget will include additional capital funding for the citywide enterprise resource planning (ERP) project even though total project costs remain under negotiation. "We're currently focused heavily on ERP readiness," Delamoria said, describing work on requirements, vendor demonstrations and chart-of-accounts redesign to prepare for implementation.

Alex Winkler, the city's chief information officer, said IT is planning to move an aging data center to a colocation facility, upgrade phone systems and strengthen cybersecurity controls, while also managing higher costs for software and storage. "Demand for IT capacity continues to outpace supply of the humans doing it," Winkler said, pointing to recently approved ERP-related positions across IT, HR and finance.

Winkler and Kyle Patterson (director of organizational effectiveness) also described the city's controlled rollout of generative AI tools. Winkler said the city deployed ChatGPT Enterprise in a governed environment; Patterson said more than 200 staff are active users. Patterson summarized the internal assessment of early use: staff report substantial time savings — "on average 4 hours of time a week" per license-holder — which he said aggregates to productivity gains equivalent to roughly 20 full-time positions across the organization.

Jason Taylor, director of Arts & History, requested $30,000 in FY27 to continue archives consulting services that support digitization and metadata work following the consolidation of city archives at the Overland Road Records Center. "Our humble budget request for FY '27, which is $30,000 to continue the archives consultant services detailed earlier," Taylor said, noting the work increases public access to searchable city records.

Winkler also described Connect Our Parks, an ARPA-funded $2,000,000 effort that brought internet connectivity to five parks; he said usage metrics and event connectivity data are available and staff will follow up with council. Delamoria said the city has submitted roughly $10,000,000 in discretionary grant requests this year and identified another $8,000,000 in planned opportunities to support priorities.

Human resources director Stacy Doty emphasized talent pipelines, a proposed 3% base contribution recommendation and investments in leadership development and physical security. Doty said prior steps reduced liability and workers' compensation claims in FY25.

Patterson proposed funding a process-improvement leader to scale continuous-improvement work across departments; he pointed to Denver's Peak Academy as a model and cited prior local wins in licensing turnaround times.

Budget office staff gave the schedule for the next steps: the FY27 budget book will be available June 12, staff will return with more detailed budget information on June 23 (including levy and fees), a public hearing is scheduled for July 14, and budget adoption is slated for August 25. Staff agreed to provide a consolidated grid summarizing department requests and follow-up materials requested by council.

The workshop produced several specific follow-ups: usage metrics for park internet, additional details on geothermal and high-priority facility investments from Public Works, information on overtime and special-event staffing for Boise Police Department, and the impact of the treasury accountant position on investment income. Council members asked staff to avoid discussing ERP contract costs publicly while negotiations continue; the mayor specifically asked staff not to disclose ongoing negotiation details to preserve negotiation leverage.

The council closed the workshop and moved to enter an executive session under Idaho Code 74-206 for personnel, real property acquisition, pending litigation and labor negotiations.