Veedersburg officials weigh cloud-based software to replace decades-old utility system

Veedersburg officials met in a special session to consider replacing the town’s aging financial and utility software with a cloud-based package that the presenter said would add backups, mobile field tools and streamlined audit access.

The transcript identifies speakers by first name or role only; where full titles were not provided, this article attributes statements using those same names or role labels as they appear in the record.

The most immediate operational promise cited by staff was resilience. A staff member noted that a recent meter-reading import required outside vendor intervention and left the office without a working system for “two and a half hours to three hours” while vendors corrected compatibility problems. “It should take me 5 minutes to import,” the staff member said, describing an episode that required both Neptune and another vendor’s support and extended into multiple hours.

Vendor terms discussed in the meeting included a waived migration fee and an annual subscription. Meeting participants said the vendor had discounted the migration charge and effectively waived the first year’s annual fee; the vendor’s quoted annual subscription was discussed at roughly $45,000. That figure was compared with the town’s current software cost of just under $16,000, yielding a net annual difference of about $27,000 if the full subscription is adopted.

The vendor’s proposed invoicing schedule, as read to the group, included a $1,000 payment on execution of the agreement, $46,640 at activation of the customer site, and a roughly $24,500 payment upon completion of training; participants noted the final training line could change if fewer training hours are needed.

Staff argued the cloud platform would add technical benefits: automatic backups on Microsoft Azure, read-only remote access for auditors and other departments, and an employee portal with pay stubs and scheduling features. “If we have it backed up on their Microsoft Azure…then it would be there no matter what happened here,” a speaker said, explaining how offsite backup would protect records in the event of fire or flood.

Operational advantages discussed included the ability to push work orders directly to field crews and let crews close jobs from tablets in the trucks, eliminating trips back to the office. Participants said the change could reduce on-site IT maintenance because the vendor would handle back-end updates, patches and disaster recovery.

Speakers also emphasized records and customer-service benefits. The town currently stores deposit records in an old handwritten ledger; staff said searchable, migrated records would make it easier to find long-ago transactions and to process refunds after residents move away. The Clerk flagged a pending State Board of Accounts audit and said read-only vendor access could shorten auditors’ on-site time.

Funding and timing were unresolved. Participants discussed paying the difference from the general fund, utility funds or a split between both; one speaker asked how a recent state house bill cutting property-tax revenue could affect the general fund but no estimate was available. The group agreed not to take a formal vote at the special meeting; rather, they will prepare a motion for the next regular meeting.

The meeting also included brief side items — a discussion about adding brick pillars to a sign and obtaining a masonry contractor’s contact — and concluded without a formal vote on the software purchase.

What happens next: staff and the vendor will finalize contract details and a motion will be brought to the town’s regular meeting for formal consideration.