MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon will replace its 36-year-old financial and payroll software and get a 21% discount for the new software, cutting the price to a little more than $75,000.
City Council agreed on March 22 to buy both pieces of software from Creative Microsystems (CMI) and pay $75,000 for them, taking advantage of the price reduction from $95,000. Council members agreed to skip to the third reading of the ordinance in order to meet the March 31 deadline for the 21% discount.
In 1985, the City became a customer of CMI and has used its software ever since for payroll and finance applications, City auditor Terry Scott said.
“I think we really were one of their first 10 customers that they ever actually put software into play back in 1985,” he said.
He believes the City’s longevity as a customer played a part in the discount offer.
“In that time period over 36 years, we’ve only had one major upgrade, and that came to play shortly after I came to become the city auditor,” Scott said. “We upgraded finance in 1996 and payroll the next year of 1997, and that’s the only very major upgrades for which we've had in the software program.”
Since then, some annual updates have been made, but no major upgrades. The software no longer will be updated or upgraded.
“I can’t believe that we’ve actually been using these programs for well over 25 years,” Scott said. “But like I said, it’s not been an issue; but now we know that there’s a short lifeline coming on these applications that we’re currently using,” Scott said.
The auditor’s office will first implement the new financial software, with the authority payroll application following a year later.
The new software will enable City departments to create requisitions and get purchase orders digitally, Scott said. This requisition routing is a new feature. For years, the City has operated with paper for requisitions, and this has led to issues that require approval of corrections by City Council.
The City had budgeted $45,500 for software upgrades this year, which Scott said is close to the $48,446 the financial software will cost. That will be paid in fiscal year 2021, with the authority financial payroll software payment made in fiscal year 2022 when that software is installed.
All existing data will transfer over to the new software, Scott said.
