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Angel Fire council reviews $241,000 request to replace finance software
Summary
The Village of Angel Fire council heard a proposal to add $241,000 to the FY27 general fund to replace its finance ERP with OpenGov, citing prior data conversion problems and poor support from the current vendor. Council asked staff for additional local references and research before taking action.
The Village of Angel Fire council heard a presentation about a proposal to add $241,000 to the FY27 general fund to buy and migrate to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for finance.
A staff member told the council the requested $241,000 covers both the new OpenGov software and the professional services needed to migrate data and run the two systems in parallel during a one-year transition. The presenter said the money would come from the general fund and that the village expects to end the year with available cash to cover the cost.
Bill, who identified himself as the village finance director, told the council the village has cycled through several financial systems in recent years and that a prior conversion left much of the 2021–22 data unusable. "Encode has the worst customer support I have ever, ever, ever dealt with," he said, citing a problematic conversion after the village returned to that vendor in 2021. Bill said staff who rely on the ERP support the switch and that the quoted price is based on the latest vendor estimate.
Council members asked for detail on what an ERP would replace and how it would affect residents. Staff explained the proposal would replace current systems used for financials and public transparency (Tyler/Encode and ClearGov) with a hub-and-spoke platform that could later add modules for permitting, licensing, capital projects and other department functions. Staff also said personal account data would convert but, under legal constraints, credit-card numbers could not be moved between systems and customers would need to re-enter payment information.
Councilors pressed on implementation risk, training, and past costs. Bill said the Cassell implementation in 2017–18 cost about $120,000 and that the Encode reconversion in 2021–22 resulted in significant data loss. Staff acknowledged the migration would be resource-intensive for municipal staff and described the transition as a parallel run with professional services to limit disruption.
The council discussed vendor references. Staff noted an OpenGov representative and a presenter named Isabelle Zeros joined by video; Bill and staff cited positive references from other jurisdictions but councilors asked for local references such as Taos County to verify experience in New Mexico. A council member asked staff to gather additional independent assessments and to report back.
No formal council vote on adopting OpenGov or on the $241,000 appropriation occurred at the meeting. The council approved the meeting agenda earlier by voice vote; after the presentation members said they would take the proposal under consideration and requested more research before making a funding decision.
