Staff recommends approval of a contract with CityView for new Community Development and Business Licensing software.

The software program that the City has been using for the past 11 years for permitting, projects, and business licenses has several deficiencies and is no longer meeting the needs of the departments and customers that use it. The City issued an RFP to obtain new Community Development software for permitting, plan review, code enforcement, inspections, and business licenses. The RFP required that the proposers provide software with the following scope and capabilities:

• Permitting
• Projects
• Code Enforcement
• Licensing
• All modules integrated with GIS for land records.
• Intuitive Online Citizen Access portal where citizens can easily apply, inquire, schedule, and pay for services online.
• Robust ePlan review module with preferred BlueBeam integration.
• Mobility software
• Available to outside agencies for reviews
• Integrate with the City’s current Financial System and Enterprise Content Management solution

The RFP committee consisted of city staff from all departments that will be utilizing the new software, along with IT representatives. The RFPs were evaluated with the following criteria:

• Perceived ability to meet the City of Billings requirements including security standard
• Experience of Supplier with Community Development Software
• Experience of Supplier with local municipality services and needs
• Experience Implementing a Citywide software solution in similar-sized municipalities
• Ability to provide integration to the City’s existing software
• Qualifications of staff who would provide the implementation and training services
• Company’s financial stability
• Capacity to assume new business
• Availability (timetable) for providing goods and/or services
• Breadth of services available
• Ongoing support
• Process Improvements
• Ability to Provide Training
• Compliance with the City of Billings Terms and Conditions
• In the event that the City of Billings has determined more than one vendor could meet the needs of the City, price could become an evaluation factor.

Nine responses were received, and the committee narrowed the field to 4 for demonstrations. The stakeholders saw demonstrations of the systems and narrowed the candidates to two, ultimately selecting CityView, which was the lower priced of the top two finalists. Further investigation was done by City staff who traveled to cities that use the CityView program to better understand the capabilities, challenges, and benefits of the program. The visits provided valuable insight as we worked on contract negotiations and project implementation. We believe that for the cost, the capabilities and features this program offers provides the best value to the City and will meet all our goals. 
 

City Council may:

• Approve; or,
• Not Approve

The cost breakdown for the software is:

One-time licensing cost for 85 full licenses and 32 mobile licenses:                                     $174,600
One-time implementation cost with $17,500 contingency that will only be paid if needed:   $401,395
Annual maintenance cost (due at installation and annually thereafter):                                $  88,476
                                                                                                  FIRST YEAR TOTAL:         $ 664,471
Sources:

The Building Division budgeted $520,000 in FY23 for the one-time software license and implementation costs. The additional $55,995 will be paid with Building Division reserves. If the contingency of $17,500 is not needed, that will only be an additional cost of $38,495 from Building Division reserves.

The Annual Maintenance cost will be split among departments based on number of users. We anticipate around 200 named users, which equates to an annual cost of around $442 per person. These will be operating costs for departments starting in FY24 and annually thereafter. Note that while we only paid for 85 simultaneous licenses (up to 85 people signed in at the same time), we can have an unlimited number of named users.

Our current e-plan review system is also allocated by number of department users, and that annual fee is around $75,000 total, which will sunset with the implementation of this new system. Departments will have to pay both maintenance fees in FY24 as we transition to the new system, but the current fees of $75,000 will fall off after CityView is fully implemented. The affected departments include Building, Planning, Code Enforcement, Engineering, Fire, Finance, and IT.