The City Council debated a resolution Monday that would transition the city from an in-house financial accounting and payroll software to a new cloud-based software.

Mayor Eddie Sundquist and his administration have asked the City Council to approve $91,683.50 in American Rescue Plan Act Tracking and Transparency funding for the implementation of Springbrook Software’s financial accounting and payroll system.

“The Springbrook software is a new software that we’re going to try to implement,” John Sellstrom, city comptroller, said. “With the system right now, it’s not very easy to use. It’s not the best system.”

Sellstrom said the new software will save the city a significant amount of time inputting payroll data due to the online login portal that each city employee will receive.

While city officials touted the new software as a beneficial upgrade for the city, the City Council members raised some key questions and concerns.

“I do have some very significant questions on this,” Kim Ecklund, R-At Large, said.

“Did we send out multiple bids or did we just pick and choose? Has Information Technology reviewed this, and are we going to need additional upgrades to people’s computers? I want to make sure that we’re covering every basis with a total switch to an Enterprise Resource Planning that’s cloud-based from what we have now.”

Mayor Eddie Sundquist explained Springbrook purchased KBS, the city’s current system, several years ago.

Due to expiring updates through the current system, the administration believed it would be easiest to switch to Springbrook’s software, since they already own and service the current KBS system the city has been using.

“Since Springbrook already services our software, they seemed to be the right choice to convert the data into their system,” he said. “It would move us from the in-house server to the cloud-based platform.”

Although the city considered other ERP programs, Sundquist said Springbrook Software “made the most sense,” since the city is already familiar with the company.

Currently, the city pays about $17,000 per year for the KBS software, which Sellstrom said is comparable to the roughly $19,000 per year that Springbrook will charge for its cloud-based software.

Despite having several questions answered by city officials, Ecklund stressed the importance of having a professional IT person present information concerning the proposed new software to the City Council.

“My big concern is that if IT is not involved, I would like the input of them, because as many of us know, with an ERP system, there’s always upgrades to things that might have been missed in this,” she said. “With cloud-based, comes some additional security stuff. I have some strong concerns with security and vital information being out there.”

Councilwoman Marie Carrubba, D-Ward 4, asked for the city administration to also provide the council with information from other cities that have switched to the new software.

“We’ll find ones that did the conversion,” Sundquist said.

The City Council is expected to discuss the proposal with the city’s head IT person next week prior to the council’s voting session.