Ericka Thomas, city comptroller, points out costs regarding the conversion to new finance software with members of the City Council’s Finance Committee recently. P-J photo by John Whittaker

Two over-budget city projects are getting an infusion of cash – but at least one City Council member is tired of projects that are turning into money pits.

During their voting session Monday, council members approved adding $2.7 million to the city’s bond anticipation note to pay for additional money for the new fleet maintenance facility on Washington Street as well as an additional $73,316 to finish implementing an ERP project.

The city took out a bond anticipation note for $2,850,000 in 2023 to pay for the fleet maintenance garage, but $4.89 million has been spent so far. The city needs $700,000 to finish the project, but is spending up front $1 million the state has promised from its Fiscal Restructuring Board. City officials have been told that money will be released, but don’t know when it will be received.

“I’m just asking that, after today, the council be briefed right up until this project is complete on the expenses moving forward so we can’t exceed $1.7 million if we are to receive the $1 million from New York state,” said Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large. I don’t want any more surprises, to be frank.”

Ericka Thomas, city comptroller, outlined during the April 22 council work session the reasons behind the $73,316 in additional spending with Springbrook Holdings, the company leading the city’s financial software conversion. Part of the cost increase was caused by turnover in the city Comptroller’s Office at the end of 2023 that added $12,086 to the project when training was pushed back from December to March. Another $1,524.25 of the increase is because subscription costs have increased. The city also needs another $15,632 for employee self-service and accounts receivable subscriptions and implementation fees while another $19,823.70 is needed for other subscriptions. Finally, the city is being billed for $14,246.09 to pay for additional time contractors have worked with city employees to convert from the old system to the new system being built by Springbrook.

“I just want to make a comment that here we are, once again, we’re given a number for a project and now we have before us that this project is going to increase by $73,316 coming from our American Rescue Plan Act Lost Revenue Fund,” Russell said. “I continue not to understand how we’re given numbers for projects and they continue to change and increase and increase. If I get a number, I get a dollar amount. I had a tree removed at my house today – $1,200. If the guy comes back in two weeks and tells me it’s $2,400, I’m going to tell him goodbye. So I don’t know why these projects continue to increase after the fact.”

Mayor Kim Ecklund said the electronic records project has been an ongoing issue for the past couple of years. Initially the city was quoted $60,000 for the project, but it was found the city hadn’t gone through a bid process. After a request for proposals Springbrook came back with a bid of roughly $90,000, which the city accepted.

When the process began late last year to implement electronic records, the city’s former deputy comptroller told Ecklund she was planning to leave city employment and that it would make sense to hold off on any further training until a new comptroller was named. It wasn’t until after January, Ecklund said, that she and Thomas found out there were pieces missing from the original bid.

“Now we get in here and myself and Mrs. Thomas go through and in that quote from ERP, it was not complete,” Ecklund said. “It did not contain all the documentation and modification that needed to be made. It was inaccurate and understated. The $70,000 in front of you is what is needed for a half-baked program before this administration came on to continue to do the best that we can do for the citizens and our employees.There’s the short of it.”

Before any future cost savings can be realized, the city has to finish implementing the system. Thomas told council members earlier this month that there are still three modules to be implemented. But Thomas said she is also taking issue with bills Springbrook is sending the city for work already done. Thomas is working with Springbrook to try to get the software subscription portion of the bill lowered.

“Back to the April bill,” Thomas said. “I have a very hard time with this bill because the bill is from April (2023) and no one in the city touched any of these modules for months. I have a very hard time paying for something we didn’t have access to, which is part of my conversation with the vice president last week. … I was told by Springbrook there were a couple of stops and starts, but Mark (Dean, city director of information technology) and my team don’t know of multiple starts and stops. They know of the one in December. So we’re trying to get on the same page and find out what’s going on. … I’m trying very hard not to pay all of this $19,400 that we didn’t really touch.”

While Russell is frustrated with cost increases, Thomas said full implementation costs are still being worked out. The city was expecting to pay for 110 Springbrook staff hours for accounts payable and general ledger implementation to get those systems up and running but has been billed for 210.5 hours. Thomas said she is working with Springbrook to make sure estimates for hours in the future are more accurate given the extra 110 hours the company didn’t properly estimate for the first two modules.

“Right now Cody is also going back and they’re making sure what they told us for payroll and tax collection, which payroll is 120 hours and tax collection is 150 hours, is realistic considering the amount of hours they’re over on what I would consider the easiest pieces,” Thomas told the council’s Finance Committee on April 22.

Lastly, the conversion is exhausting overtime budgets for some of Thomas’ staff because the conversion makes it impossible for staff to do their regular work while ERP work is taking place. While the council won’t have to approve it, city staff overtime is also coming in over budget as part of the conversion.

“That means they can’t do their regular work,” Thomas said. “They have to be completely focused to help with the configuration. I don’t know how much time Jennifer’s team would need for the discovery. I know in my department the overtime that was budgeted was $3,000 for the entire year and just the 24 to 44 hours to do payroll, I’ve already gone over my overtime budget for other things so to keep this going. $10,000 is an estimate for overtime for my department and other departments to do what they need to do with the configuration, debug and train for their pieces of the project.”