2006-11-20 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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customized, which adds to the cost. He asked whether the County had a system for evaluating the performance of the vendors, and Ms. Crawford said the system was acquired through the Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Mr. Sakaguchi asked whether it goes on ad infinitum, and Ms. Crawford said it is the County's option to stay with the vendor, and the cost to convert is high. She felt that overall, the system is performing pretty well, and the County is getting a lot of good things out of it. Also, payroll is the most difficult module with any vendor and would require customization with any vendor. Before the County did the RFP, they did a request for information and got responses from about 30 companies. They used the information they gathered for the specifications in the RFP and spent about two years selecting the software. In retrospect, the only thing Ms. Crawford felt she would change would be to take more time to bring all the modules on. Instead, they had an aggressive implementation schedule. She personally does not feel they need to go shopping for new software. The FRESH system requires more employee work than the old system, but it gathers a great deal more information. Ms. Nicholson asked whether the information was payroll related or other kinds of information, and Ms. Crawford said it is both payroll and human resources information. They are now keeping in the computer a lot of human resource information that used to be written on cards and in log books. Some people will tell you the manual system was more efficient, but having it online makes it accessible to more people. She recognizes that the system is stronger on its payroll side than its human resource side, and they are working hard with the vendor to implement improvements. There is also an annual conference in which all of the vendor's customers are invited to gather to lobby for improvements to the system. This is one reason the County brought software off the shelf, so there wouldn't be the problem of having it customized and something happening to the only person who knew how to use it. The Civil Service Department had a lot of issues that came up from having to change their system, and they also have legitimate complaints about inefficiencies. She felt the best thing they could do now is improve on those. She did not feel they would be better off bailing out on it. Mr. Sakaguchi said that many private companies turn over their whole payroll and human resource record - keeping to outside vendors and that these companies must be getting better service than the County is from its vendor. He asked how much the County is paying the vendor. Ms. Crawford said the entire system was originally bought for under $1 million and includes all the modules. They have done about $100,000 worth of modifications. They also pay annual licensing and support fees which she roughly estimated at about $50,000 to $60,000 per year. This provides the County with support for general operations problems, training, and fixing things that go wrong. Based on requests, the vendor upgrades the system in a big way twice a year and in smaller ways throughout the year to keep improving and adding enhancements. As a partner, the vendor has been very good in trying to help the County and respond to its needs. The County is one of the vendor's larger customers in terms of the number of employees and volume of data to process, and has tested the vendor's system or pushed the limits of what the system does. Mr. Sakaguchi said that the County was establishing its specifications by making its requests to the vendor, and Ms. Crawford agreed and explained that if the County requests something that is an enhancement for all the customers, the vendor will treat it another way. Mr. Sakaguchi said it seemed the front -end employees who input the data do not see the benefits the back -end employees have, and priority should be given to lessen their work in some