CITY MANAGER’S OFFICE
WEEKLY MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor Rines, Councilors and Department Heads
FROM: Jeffrey Kobrock, City Manager
DATE: July 9, 2004
RE: Weekly Memo
Meetings for the Week of July 12, 2004
City Council Meeting Thurs., July 15, 7:00 pm, City Hall
Technology Committee
A committee of City staff has been working for the past year to address our technology needs in a comprehensive, proactive context. An Action Plan has been developed that became the technology component of our Capital Improvement Plan. The Action Plan lays out hardware and software needs over the next five years. Within that plan was the need to update our integrated software package (currently Northern Data Systems or NDS) which has not been reviewed since 1997.
The committee has spent several months developing a request for proposals for integrated software, analyzing responses (we got four proposals), participating in demonstrations with the vendors, and analyzing software functionality. As an added benefit we are discussing “sharing” the utility billing module with the Water District to reduce initial outlays and ongoing license/operating costs.
Currently we are focusing upon two packages that represent opposite ends of the spectrum - the current vendor NDS, and Unifund. NDS is old reliable software that everyone knows very well. Unifund is relatively new to Maine (although they are throughout the Northeast) and has really extraordinary functionality and productivity advantages, and is a cutting edge product that would launch the organization beyond its current potential. As with everything in life, the price tags reflect the functionality of the products. We will continue to review our options and update the Council when enough of the details have been sifted to provide a clear picture of our choices.
In this packet
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