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Lockport staff recommends moving city financial and permit software to vendor cloud; council presses for contract protections
Summary
City staff asked council to approve placement of a BSNA cloud migration contract that would cost $86,500 to implement and raise annual licensing from about $48,000 to roughly $108,000; council members urged a service-level agreement, exit/data-migration protections and competitive comparables before final approval.
City finance staff presented a proposal to migrate Lockport’s on-premise BSNA financial and building-permit software to the vendor’s cloud platform and asked the council to place the contract on a near-term agenda.
"The implementation costs are $86,500," Lisa, finance staff, told the committee-of-the-whole, describing the one-time work for data migration, custom reports, security configuration, staff training and testing. She said the city’s current annual spending of about $48,000 would increase to roughly $108,000 a year on the cloud product, with a 5% annual escalator.
Staff argued the cloud product would improve security, provide automatic updates, enable remote access for staff and offer new modules such as in-field building inspections that could speed permitting. Several council members said those efficiencies are appealing but pressed for stronger contract terms before committing: they asked for a service-level agreement guaranteeing uptime and remedies, a vendor commitment to assist with data extraction if Lockport ever switches vendors, and competitive comparables to confirm value.
"They don't have a service level agreement," one alderman said of the draft contract, adding that without an SLA the city would lack leverage if the system were unavailable. Lisa said she had requested SLA language and would pursue purchasing-coalition options and peer comparables; she agreed to return with follow-up information and place the item as an action item on the June agenda.
Council members also raised price negotiation tactics (longer-term pricing, multi-city purchasing) and operational questions such as after-hours support; staff said the vendor’s support is not 24/7 and that after-hours issues would be handled through ticketing with standard business-hour response windows.
The committee directed staff to pursue comparables and additional contract protections and to return with a recommendation at a future meeting; the council did not approve the contract in that session.
