Carmel committee recommends $2 million for citywide Workday ERP implementation

The Carmel Finance, Utilities and Rules Committee voted Monday to send three related items to the full City Council with positive recommendations, including a resolution to transfer $2,000,000 and an ordinance to appropriate the same amount for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation using Workday.

Zach Jackson, Carmel city chief financial officer, told the committee he was "asking city council to appropriate 2,000,000 to cover the cost for implementing Workday, a cloud based ERP system that unifies finance, HR, and planning across our enterprise." Jackson said the city's current accounting system dates to 1994 and that several departments use disparate solutions, which creates manual, duplicative work.

Tom Heldt, vice president for government at Workday, presented the vendor's Project Cornerstone overview and said the cloud-native platform offers a single source of truth, automation and security protections. "As you use our software, some of our artificial intelligence technology will look at where there are inefficiencies in the process," Heldt said, noting the city and vendor plan to establish baselines and run a before-and-after assessment.

Heldt and Jackson said implementation will require upfront investment and that Workday's annual licensing is expected to be about $30,000 more than the city currently pays across multiple systems. Heldt projected the city could recover implementation investments in roughly three to four years based on projected efficiency gains.

Committee members pressed on practical details. Councilor Menard asked whether the platform can show realized efficiencies; Heldt said measurement requires setting baselines and, with the city's help, Workday can provide tools and analysis. Councilor Royal asked about on-site support; Heldt and Jackson said there will be "boots on the ground" at pivotal milestones, balanced with remote work to manage travel costs. Councilor Green asked about phasing and cloud readiness; Jackson said ADP is cloud-based, the current accounting system is not, and the city plans phased module go-lives around April–May next year, with contingency to be ready by Jan. 1 the following year.

Jackson also described procurement and contract-management gaps the ERP aims to address. He said the current procurement process requires manual rekeying into the accounting system and that Workday offers a contract life-cycle module that the city may adopt later; the city currently uses OpenGov for sourcing and bid posting.

On the agenda the committee considered: ordinance D-28-29-26 (to amend city code and establish a nonreverting ERP implementation fund), resolution CC-06-15-26-03 (to transfer $2,000,000 from the general fund into the ERP implementation fund), and the first reading of ordinance D-28-31-26 (to appropriate $2,000,000 for ERP implementation). The committee approved motions to send the ordinances and resolution to the full council with positive recommendations: ordinance D-28-29-26 was moved by Councilor Green and seconded by Councilor Menard; the resolution was moved by Councilor Menard and seconded (the record states Councilor Reuel); and the first reading ordinance was moved by Councilor Royal and seconded by Councilor Green. The transcript records voice votes and notes "motion carries," but does not record individual roll-call tallies.

The committee also discussed training: Jackson said training is part of the implementation plan and that staff (including department leads) will be instructed on new tools. Jackson and Heldt said further modules or contract-management functionality may be considered later and could carry additional licensing costs.

The committee sent the items on to the full City Council; the meeting adjourned at 5:02 p.m. The transcript contains inconsistent references to fund numbering (see below), which the committee did not resolve during the meeting.