Arapahoe County to accelerate migration off Google Cloud to avoid new Microsoft licensing costs

Arapahoe County staff told commissioners they want to move county servers out of Google Cloud now rather than in 2027 to avoid sharply higher Microsoft licensing costs. Bridal Austin, the systems presenter, said the county can use fixed assets already planned for replacement to bring production and backup storage in-house and avoid an estimated $230,000 annual licensing charge.

"We can do what we're gonna do we're gonna do anyways next year, this year with no new money spent this year, just pulling out fixed assets that we were gonna spend next year anyways and have a cost avoidance of 230,000," Bridal Austin said, outlining the approach to accelerate purchases and use reappropriated assets. IT staff and the director explained the change was prompted after Microsoft eliminated a licensing option used in the Google environment, and Google offered a compliance pathway priced at about $230,000 a year.

Staff also flagged ongoing Google subscription costs the county pays monthly. "That contract is about to the term of, 48,000 a month," Philip Sabino (IT) said earlier in the discussion, a figure staff equated to roughly $500,000 a year in total cloud subscription costs. Commissioners asked about timing and risk; staff said vendor lead times for hardware are tight but feasible if orders are placed quickly, and that there is a contingency to ask Google for month‑to‑month coverage if the migration slips.

The board did not take a formal recorded vote. Instead, after discussion the chair asked for a show of support and recorded five commissioners offering an informal "thumbs up" to move forward to the Q2 budget review process, where staff will seek formal appropriation and reconfiguration of the identified fixed assets.