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Item 1.D.
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| City Council Regular | |
| Date: | 02/13/2023 |
| Title: | Agreement for Utility Billing Software Solution |
| Presented by: | Jennifer Duray |
| Department: | Public Works |
| Presentation: | No |
| Legal Review | Yes |
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the City Council approve the agreement with VertexOne Software, LLC for the utility billing and field service order solution.
BACKGROUND (Consistency with Adopted Plans and Policies, if applicable)
The Public Works Department provides water, wastewater, and solid waste collection services to the businesses and approximately 125,000 residents within the City of Billings. For these three services, Public Works has approximately 40,000 customers that collectively generate roughly $62 million of revenue a year. The utility billing system touches more citizens as a two-way transaction on a recurring basis than any City service, making it a critical aspect of customer service/relations. The existing legacy utility billing system lacks support and is unable to meet the City's current and anticipated needs for utility billing and customer support.
This solution will greatly improve the functionality, security, flexibility, reliability, and services the City provides through its utility billing program. It will also greatly enhance Public Work's efficiencies and reduce redundancies. The new solution will have the ability to fully integrate with the City's various financial and business-critical systems including, but not limited to the City's financial system, Geographical Information System (GIS), meter reading software, solid waste route software, and payment processor software. Public Work's current customer portal, formerly known as Watersmart, is now owned by VertexOne, making it fully integrated with the solution. The selected vendor's solution will provide customer service and utility billing for water, sewer, and solid waste services, as well as the ability to add additional services in the future. The solution will be a cloud based platform and support operations and management of Public Works utility services, which includes, but is not limited to, enrolling new customers, generating billing, managing payments, administering customer service transactions, tracking meter reading and consumption, generating service orders, both in office and the field, billing multiple cycles with multiple rates for water, sewer, and solid waste, and enabling access to a variety of customer account information. In addition, the solution will provide the capability to facilitate field service orders for our Meter division which provides an additional efficiency not previously available. Services provided with the software include implementation, data conversion, training, post-implementation support, and ongoing maintenance support.
The Request for Proposals (RFP) for a utility billing software-as-a-service provider was advertised on July 29 and August 5, 2022, in the Yellowstone County News and on the City's website. A committee that included staff from Public Works Administration and Information Technology evaluated 13 proposals. The proposals were evaluated based on experience and key project staff, ability to complete scope of work/functionality, project approach, and cost. The four (4) vendors with the highest scores were selected to provide on site demonstrations. After final scoring, reviewing, and reference checks, the committee elected to move forward with recommending VertexOne Software LLC.
This solution will greatly improve the functionality, security, flexibility, reliability, and services the City provides through its utility billing program. It will also greatly enhance Public Work's efficiencies and reduce redundancies. The new solution will have the ability to fully integrate with the City's various financial and business-critical systems including, but not limited to the City's financial system, Geographical Information System (GIS), meter reading software, solid waste route software, and payment processor software. Public Work's current customer portal, formerly known as Watersmart, is now owned by VertexOne, making it fully integrated with the solution. The selected vendor's solution will provide customer service and utility billing for water, sewer, and solid waste services, as well as the ability to add additional services in the future. The solution will be a cloud based platform and support operations and management of Public Works utility services, which includes, but is not limited to, enrolling new customers, generating billing, managing payments, administering customer service transactions, tracking meter reading and consumption, generating service orders, both in office and the field, billing multiple cycles with multiple rates for water, sewer, and solid waste, and enabling access to a variety of customer account information. In addition, the solution will provide the capability to facilitate field service orders for our Meter division which provides an additional efficiency not previously available. Services provided with the software include implementation, data conversion, training, post-implementation support, and ongoing maintenance support.
The Request for Proposals (RFP) for a utility billing software-as-a-service provider was advertised on July 29 and August 5, 2022, in the Yellowstone County News and on the City's website. A committee that included staff from Public Works Administration and Information Technology evaluated 13 proposals. The proposals were evaluated based on experience and key project staff, ability to complete scope of work/functionality, project approach, and cost. The four (4) vendors with the highest scores were selected to provide on site demonstrations. After final scoring, reviewing, and reference checks, the committee elected to move forward with recommending VertexOne Software LLC.
ALTERNATIVES
City Council may:
- Approve the agreement with VertexOne Software LLC for the Utility billing software solution; or,
- Not approve the agreement.
FISCAL EFFECTS
The Agreement with VertexOne Software LLC terminates the Watersmart agreement, saving about $60,000 per year for the customer service portal. The first-year cost for VertexOne Software is $1,081,445 which includes $746,373 of one-time implementation fees, as well as a $335,072 annual fee for platform hosting, support, and maintenance. The annual fee will be approximately $345,124 in year 2 and $355,478 in year 3. The software is included in the FY23 Water, Wastewater, and Solid Waste Funds.