05-2018 Software Proposal - Laserfiche WebLink

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OpenGov May 2018 Page 2 of 8 Personnel Hiring additional staff to enable us to do the required reporting by the federal, state, local governments is not cost effective. The cost of an employee including salary benefits computer software licenses is $42,993 for six months of 2018 and $77,670 for 2019 (Appendix A), almost equal to the cost of the software less the deployment costs. We also would have to find a place to put in additional person. According to the Washington State Employment Security Department, Accountants and Auditor are in demand all across Washington State (Appendix B). The website CareerOneStop – Careers with Most openings in Washington State, Accountants and Auditors are #17 on the list, there are 1,590 projected job openings across the state (Appendix C). If we were authorized a new position, it might take a while to fill the position. The last opening we had took six months to fill. I prepared the 2017 budget document and it took me two solid weeks (80 hours) of my time to create this document. We currently use our financial data and re‐enter it into Excel creating graphs and pivot tables. OpenGov will create to documents enabling us to create the document in timely manner. A couple of weeks ago, Commissioner Jewell requested some information and the preparation of the information took two hours to complete, and with OpenGov, the data would already be available to pull. The software is not intended to replace an existing position, it will be used to streamline mundane, routine tasks to allow staff to spend more time on higher‐valued tasks that requires thought processes, enabling staff to feel less time stressed. As you are aware, in the past three years we had several changes in management personnel. This has been very time consuming for my staff and me, especially in the budget and reporting area. Other time issues have to do with newly issued programs within the County, i.e. Admissions Tax, Water Banks, 2016 GO Bond financing, FEMA disaster reporting and all the medical changes. Please understand that we do not have issues with any of the new personnel training, we would rather train them on the issues than have them struggle so they can excel in their jobs. However, in two instances, I made mistake on the quarterly reporting with the IRS and Labor & Industries. With the IRS, I reported an amount on the incorrect day; showing the 5th payroll on the 4th, and I received a notice of $32,000 for penalties and interest. After hours of time corresponding verbally and written, they waive the amount. Labor & Industries sent us a notice for penalties and interest in the amount of $6,382.44 because they had not received their payment by April 30. The payment was mailed on April 30th; they had not received it until May 7th. This is to indicate that when we make a mistake, there can be huge penalties. Funding One of the funding sources to cover the software purchase would be the indirect cost allocation, which is billed to all funds in the County that have personnel. The billing is based upon salaries and wage times the percentage of the costs allocation. The current rate is 12.50% and if I apply the cost of the software it would increase the percentage billed to departments by 0.50% increasing it to 13.00%. The amount would generate $35,000, (based upon March 2018 wages). The deployment onetime costs can be funded from Fund Balance as in 2017 we budget to receive $651,223 from the indirect cost allocation and we actually billed and received $742,282, equaling $91,059 in additional revenues. The State Auditors should be able to use OpenGov and save on audit costs and our time.