Um thank you for joining us today.

We are here for committee meeting to discuss um our payroll modernization.

Joined by Councillor Hogan, Nabe, President Hudson, Gethers, Monto, Paniagua.

Um and some individuals from the administration, if you guys want to introduce yourselves.

Yeah, Mike Canazero, Commissioner of Finance.

Josh Larson, uh project manager in the API office.

Sound good.

Um I guess we'll get an update.

Uh I'm assuming that's kind of where you want to go give us an update, and then we can kind of go down the path of the 900 million dollar or 900 million dollar, pardon me.

But uh,000 requests in front of the council currently and you know, where we're gonna head in the future.

That's good, thank you.

Um so yeah, Mike Kenazar, Commissioner of Finance.

Um I think we got about 10, 12 slides we wanted to go through, but just um some background.

The last time we met um as far as the committee meeting was April 14th, so a little bit more than five months ago.

Um the goal for today's uh committee meeting is to kind of give you an update on the the status on the progress that we've made in the last five and a half months, and then our our new request.

Um so I think on April 14th, where we left you was you know, reevaluating that HRIS or HCM um software, Oracle Fusion was um you know, the the uh the previous software we were discussing and building out, um, whereas now the the new ask um as far as this mosaic uh RFP is for UKG Pro.

Um so if you could just go to the next slide.

Um so yeah, kind of just gave you the uh recap.

We're gonna talk about our um updates for timekeeping in HCM, um, next steps for the project, and then we'll go over questions as well.

And so a memo was distributed last night.

Um I think all council members should have it.

So if you have any questions on that as well, um I would just ask for you to let us get through that presentation and we can kind of go through all those questions at the end.

Um so next slide.

Um so short term, mid medium-term, long-term, why are we doing this?

Um I I've been up here numerous times at this point, just talking about how manual and duplicative a lot of the processes are in uh the payroll timekeeping process, um, employees manually typing uh time cards into spreadsheets, spreadsheets getting typed into AS400, AS400 reports getting typed into different instances of AS400.

Um so really the the goal is to utilize technology and streamline um some of our processes.

Um why are we coming to you now?

Um to touch upon that that mid-term uh AS400 um city's been using it for at least I believe the last 30 years, uh maybe a little bit longer than that.

Um it is not a software that we think is viable for the city long term to continue paying employees out of.

And the reason that is uh a lot of the employees um are nearing retirement age.

Um so we have a little graphic on the right there that's kind of supposed to illustrate the current makeup of the the payroll team and the IT team.

Um I think the yellow shade outlined employees are we we have two current retirees that work full-time hours that work every week um to help with payroll processing.

Uh we have the the two um employees shaded in white that we have employees that are nearing uh retirement age that you know at the drop of a hat they can decide that they want to retire, and then three employees in the uh the payroll team that you know are still a few years away from retirement age.

So really what we're trying to do now is contingency planning of you know, when when this workforce um retires, how do we pay our employees?

Um that that's that's what this ask is.

Um, really a lot of contingency planning for that next generation of city workers.

How do we process their payroll?

How do they interact with HR, how do we track their demographics?

Um, so a lot of that would be the long-term you know, utilizing data and just a much better payroll and HR experience um for the city.

So I will hand it over to Josh to go over the overview of systems, and it is very warm in here.

I don't know if that's just me.

Go ahead.

All right, so I'm gonna start off on this slide, which you might recognize from back when we were here in April.

Uh just want to start here because I know when we're talking about systems, it can feel kind of abstract and hard to follow what exactly is going on.

So uh as a reminder, this is kind of the the simplest overview I can provide right now is we've got timekeeping on one side, we've got the the HCM human capital management system, which is on the right side.

Uh and ideally, you know, this is supposed to be kind of a cycle where timekeeping information goes in and out, and those systems are working together, and and through that cycle, employees are paid.

So uh we kind of have updates on both of those sides.

Uh timekeeping is you know, SWC and telestaff, which uh I've got some some pretty substantive updates there.

Uh and if you remember last time, the the HCM side of this was a little bit more of the question mark because at that time we were still evaluating were we going to continue implementing Oracle and building that out.

So we'll we'll touch on both of those as we go forward.

Um so go ahead and move on to the next slide.

Thanks.

So starting with the timekeeping side, two systems I highlight here.

One is SWC.

That's the one you probably know best if you've been following any of this project at all.

Um, this is where employees are swiping in and out at clocks, their their pay is being calculated based on the in time and the outtime.

Uh, we've got you know all of our kind of union contract policies and city policies configured into this system so that it's doing as much of that calculation in an automated fashion, which is you know aimed at trying to reduce some of the it might be done differently in this department versus this department versus that department, trying to just kind of standardize that across the city.

So that's the goal there, and we're continuing our our rollout there.

Um, but I just want to highlight this system is for the non-public safety departments.

Uh anyone who's in public safety is is using telestaff.

And I want to pause there for a minute just because telestaff is currently being used by both police and fire.

It is the system that they're using for all their their timekeeping.

Um so definitely room for improvement down the road as far as automating some of that data flow from telestaff into the AS400 for payment, but um it's at least a major you know accomplishment of the last few years that that you know that's about half of the workforce is is in a system using this as their digital timekeeping already.

Um so I'll go to the next slide, please.

All right.

So back in April, uh we had basically been through a period of rebuilding, reconfiguring, retesting all this stuff, um, and we were kind of right at the cusp of of launching in water and and continuing on to other departments.

So I just want to highlight kind of on the left side of this here.

I'm I'm just looking at kind of where we stood, the different phases of rollout that we were in.

Um and that's that pie chart kind of represents the whole city workforce there.

So at that time we had kind of a narrow slice that was in parallel testing.

We had a number who had been trained, but we're kind of waiting at that stage before going into parallel testing.

Uh, and then a bunch of people who were, you know, waiting.

We're we're gonna get to them soon.

We hadn't really started engaging with them.

And you know, importantly, no one at that point was live launched paying off of SWC back then.

Uh fast forward to today, we've got uh water has been live now for a couple of weeks, uh, which is a really exciting milestone.

Uh we've I maybe the best place to start here is that everyone in the workforce has been reached.

Every department has been reached, whether they're trained and waiting for next steps, or they're actively in parallel testing, or they're actually live and using SWC.

So a lot of progress has been made, even though we're not sitting here and telling you we've successfully rolled this out everywhere.

That's not to say that a lot of progress hasn't been made over these last you know six, seven months since we were here before.

Um right.

Um just to interject on that.

Just to interject on that, I mean, this was really, you know, that progress from the left pie chart to the right.

Um with the minimal use of external contractors, I think, you know, heard from council as far as what we're doing with our outside consultants with IT, not sustainable.

Um, you know, we're still working with a few um IT consultants, primarily um Kathleen Wilson, and then Central City Data Services, but all of this progress was, you know, I give a lot of credit to Josh, but you know, the internal project team, um, all this progress can be attributable to them.

And this is you know, really reducing the number of dollars that were going out the door to um you know IT consultants.

So just wanted to interject with that.

Yeah, thanks for adding that.

Uh one other thing to highlight while we're here is um I think because of the the kind of history surrounding this project and how long people have been trying to get this over the finish line.

Uh I think that a lot of departments are not necessarily excited that this is coming up for them.

They're more like dreading the fact that they're gonna have to do things in a new way.

Um, and I wanted to just add that in the couple weeks that we've been live now at Water, been hearing a lot of good things, things I even I wasn't necessarily expecting to hear.

It's things like um, you know, we're really glad that we're doing this, or this is a lot easier than I expected it to be.

So, you know, minimal errors over the last couple weeks, we're really excited about where things are at there.

Um, and yeah, to Mike's point, this has all been done without really much external support.

It's all been done based on the resources we have internally.

Um last thing I'll say here is at our current pace, we're you know, we had we had hoped to be kind of wrapping this up by the end of summer.

We did hit a couple of roadblocks over that time, uh, but we're still you know making a lot of progress, as you can see illustrated there.

Our goal is to is to still have this done by the end of the calendar year.

All right, so right.

That was the left side of that diagram.

Now we're kind of moving over to that right side, the the human capital management system, uh, to kind of catch you up on what's happened since April.

Um so back then we were still evaluating whether Oracle was the right solution for us, um, and and through a pretty lengthy process of seeing the alternatives, uh, talking about you know what sort of ongoing software costs would there be, what would implementation look like?

Would we need a lot of outside support for that?

What would that cost?

How long would that take?

Um, as well as you know, what is that going to entail for us to keep that system maintained over the coming years and decades?

Um last thing to add there, we also looked at you know, what other software do we have in play currently that we're gonna need this to work with?

So uh I bring that up just to highlight the fact that you know back when we were working with Oracle, it wasn't necessarily designed to work with the software we have for timekeeping.

And so that was you know a key factor in us deciding UKG makes the most sense because um you know, we looked at ongoing software costs, we we figured implementation costs and timeline.

This was one of the lower of the options that we looked at.

Um it's a little bit more of a software as a service model, which means that part of our license costs that we're paying will be giving us support to maintain the system going forward rather than having to hire you know three, four, or five people full time into our IT department to keep this going, like we would have had to if we went live with Oracle.

Um and obviously, you know, this is UKG pro, SWC telestap, those are both UKG products.

So these are designed to fit really neatly together.

Um so those were really the the salient factors in getting us to UKG Pro being the best fit for the HCM.

Um and and once we arrived at that, uh we pretty quickly issued an RFP for implementation services, um, got three really good submissions there, uh, eventually selecting Mosaic Consulting Group as uh what we believe to be demonstrably just the most qualified across the board.

Um another thing I'll highlight here is that in the past, and envisioning this future state where we have multiple systems doing different things, we kind of had a different consulting group for each one of those things, and it just made things more complicated because it wasn't one team who knew all the systems.

Now we're getting, for one thing, all those software is under one roof, and Mosaic really showed themselves to be the most qualified at each of those systems.

So they're gonna be able to kind of help on every aspect of this project moving forward.

Um so uh that's that's kind of the reasoning that went in behind that.

Yeah.

And then I'll I'll hand it off to Mike now for the next slide.

So our request for the next steps here, and again, why we're here today.

Um, you know, internally we want to make sure we get uh Syracuse Workforce Central rolled out to the rest of the workforce.

Um primarily that's DPW, one park place, city hall.

Um, but there's a couple, you know, there's one big external constraint here, and then internally, like I already mentioned about our workforce or our aging workforce, um, and trying to make sure we're we're setting up for you know payroll processing for you know the next generation.

But um Chrono's Syracuse are the workforce central software will be end of life on premise um March 31st, 2027.

Um again, that's uh what a year and a half away from today.

Um part of this mosaic agreement is to um, and and Josh put together a good kind of Gantt chart on the next slide.

Um we will need to migrate from Syracuse or from this workforce central software um to their new product, which is work for dementia uh workforce dimensions.

Um and that will kind of the the two digital timekeeping um softwares we're talking about, telestaff and SWC, those will kind of merge into one application, um, which will consolidate this.

It'll be nice that everyone's in the same um timekeeping software, right now it is, you know, public safety is a little um separated from the rest of the workforce, so that will all be in one application.

Um so we we say all that because public safety, you know, that's a thousand people between the firefighters, police officers, they are using telestaff today.

Um we're hopefully gonna roll uh have the rest of the uh workforce on digital time timekeeping by the end of the calendar year, but that is a forced migration.

So if if we do not have um this completed by March 31st, 2027, um we are talking about going back to paper timesheets at that point.

Um I would ask you all, you know, please Google like SW or you know, workforce central end of life.

Um it's not you know something I'm making up, and it uh really would um be a huge detriment for all the progress we've made as far as modernizing and trying to digitize um timekeeping and payroll.

If I could add to that really quickly, just because I don't want there to be an impression that we're still rolling out of software that we're gonna have to completely replace later.

Um so I just want to highlight all of our work going to the software will be migrated.

It's not being thrown away, it's just being moved from one system to another and some some other enhancements and whatnot, but um it's important from our perspective to be able to move the things we've built out successfully from one to the other rather than having to ditch one and start from scratch later on down the road.

Okay, and just so we're all clear, the $900,000 agenda item is for what the next slide really all of this.

So I mean, starting in the fall with Mosaic, um UKG Pro would be our you know, replace AS400 for payroll processing, employee demographic information, all of that.

Um that would be included in the HCM.

And then the migration that we're talking about, um ideally the second half of 2026, um, moving telestaff SWC to workforce dimensions, um, getting all of that integrated, and hopefully, was that end of Q1?

I think yeah.

So March 31st, um, 2027, you know, we're in that new timekeeping software along with new payroll HRIS.

And so it is for implementation services.

Yes.

And UKG Pro.

What are we talking annual for the cost of of that product?

I think all in licenses uh for timekeeping payroll HR uh I think 700.

I think 745,000 per year.

Yep.

And is that included in the 900 that we're currently looking at?

No.

And the 900 is being taken from where?

Which account?

Uh the city software systems project.

So we would have previously had 6.5 million dollars authorized for the payroll modernization project using capital dollars that were bonded dollars.

Um we've spent four million of that.

Um, so there's two and a half million left in that that project account.

So we would utilize that.

Um, so that that would be a new spend, um, but it's been previously authorized in our uh capital plan.

And so we're paying interest on that two and a half million dollars just sitting there.

No, no, we haven't spent it.

Okay.

Yeah.

2.3.

Thank you, Nader.

Um, so you were just talking about workforce central.

Are we talking about an app?

We're talking about where someone is gonna actually an employee is gonna control their own hours, they're gonna look where they're gonna say, I'm gonna work a half a day, I got approval, and you know, work half a day the next year or go on vacation.

Yes and no.

I mean, so time off approvals would be happening at the clock for um our hourly workforce, so that's where they would be submitting um time off requests, so that's vacation.

Um they they wouldn't be in charge of their schedule, that that'd be their manager's job as far as dictating what their schedule would be.

Okay, so they'll know what their schedule is for the next one, two, three weeks.

Yeah, this is your schedule and you'll go there.

Now, are they gonna be in control of their own say time sheets?

Will they have an app where each employee has to punch in and out?

They I don't necessarily think we'll have an app.

I mean, that might be something a little bit longer down the road, but at the clock, they would see this is their time for the week.

Um, I don't think we're requiring them to approve their timesheet.

We are um imploring employees to approve their timesheet before it's submitted.

Um really the issue with that is sometimes they're not sure they're not sure of what the overtime that was submitted, and maybe that's on a lag.

Um, so this will really increase transparency for employees um as far as what they are going to get paid.

They will, you know, be seeing up I have 40 regular hours, I work 10 hours of overtime, that's what's gonna match what's in my paycheck next week.

Whereas right now that's that they could correct it ahead of time if there's an error to catch it.

That is correct.

Yep.

So on the new well, the system they use now from a lot of people I get calls about if they punch in early, is not calculating it.

So is this system gonna be say you got to be a work at six, but you punch in at 5 30?

Is it gonna set the time for six, or is it gonna t set the time for 5 30 because that that's something we're going to have to change?

Um, like the business practice of I am familiar with the the situation you're you're discussing.

Um our rounding rules, I think are seven minutes.

So if your shift starts starts at six a.m.

Uh the software, you know, has to have have rules to follow.

So it's really seven minutes that you're allowed to.

If your shift starts at 6 a.m., you can punch in at 5 53 a.m.

That's going to round up to 6 a.m.

Whereas if you punch in at 5 45, the system's gonna read that as 5 45.

Your your day started at 5 45.

Um wouldn't be a set time already set for the system regardless.

And wouldn't it be like something a supervisor would have to approve?

An employee can still do that as far as the clocking in at 5 30.

The supervisor is going to have to go in and manually adjust their timesheet to 6 a.m.

If that's when their their time their their shift started.

Is that answer your question?

There is a five minute grace.

Seven minute grace.

Okay.

And supervisors will need to approve of anything that it's moving forward.

Before you you issue any payments.

Yep.

Yep.

Okay.

Now for March 27, what should be happening?

It's not only the timekeeping, but also uh effectively, you know, payroll.

Replacing the ASCII.

The whole program.

So have you foreseen what the challenges of that would be?

Because you know, when we establishing something new, there's always something.

There's always a challenge, and there's always some kinks in the way.

So I mean, the interviews with the RFP uh respondents, um, Mosaic, I mean, this isn't their first rodeo.

I think they they're very familiar with telestaff, the type of migration that we need to happen and trying to build this out.

Um so I think they'll just be a better team player.

I think just the challenges over the last few years have, you know, we're going into this process with our eyes wide open.

Um I think we'll be much more collaborative in the administrative portfolio between IT, HR, API, finance.

Um, and I think uh, yeah, hopefully, you know, this will should should be successful.

You mentioned Oracle.

Let me ask you a question and not you know.

So I know that we've had some issues in one of our other areas with Oracle.

So do we foresee those type of issues?

I know there'll be challenges, but to that in depth.

So I you kind of referencing some of the payroll issues at the school district of Rochester.

Yeah.

Um so that that's you know, with the cost here, and I I'll use the car example because I think that's easier.

Um we're we're leasing the car.

So when we have a problem with the car, we're gonna go to UKG and be, hey, you know, the engine's not starting, we have to fix this, and we're leasing it.

So they're on the hook to the to fix it.

You know, we won't need internal mechanics to fix it because UKG, this is all part of that price, and this is why it costs so much, is because they're gonna be offering that support and maintenance.

Umracle, I mean, it was still on the cloud and we're still paying licenses, but Oracle, in my opinion, was more like you're buying the car.

You have to have your own mechanics on site.

Um, whereas we don't have our own mechanics on site.

And honestly, in my opinion, if we went live with Oracle back in January 25, you know, that contractor would still be in the building and we'd be paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars every month to get payroll out the door because we did not have the resources to figure that software out.

Um so I think we would be in that same bucket as the school district and the Rochester school district if we went live with that previous application.

And another question for you.

We talk about the AS 400.

And I know that we keep saying that is antiquated, but I know that some companies are still using the AS400.

So are there new modules to AS400?

I I mean that's that's a potential option.

Is as do we want to try to modernize the I think it's the I series.

Um if that was the plan, I I would you know, the IT department in their budget next year would be requesting a significant amount of you know new hires to help with the management of this software if we're doing it, if if that is the plan.

Um I don't want to say UKG is the only option of how we're gonna be able to pay people a year from now because that's not true.

I think Costco still uses AS400 for like inventory, like they're pretty pretty profitable company.

Um so they're they figured it out.

Um I don't think we're as well run as Costco.

Um, but if that's what you want to do, investing in hardware, having staff, you know, hiring staff that you know, with our salaries and the residency requirement in my five years here, it has been challenging finding qualified competent staff with this niche specialty experience that that's what we're looking for.

Um and then if we aren't able to hire those internally, then I think we're we're going back into this cycle of external contractors, paying an arm and leg, arm and a leg for them.

Um so you know, I wish I had better answers here, but I I think you know, we have to pick something, we have to do something.

None of the answers are great.

Um, I mean, just think take TV, like you used to buy a DVD player and buy your DVDs, because now you stream, you're paying streaming and you're watching commercials.

I mean, this is just the environment we live in as far as technology.

So one more question before you jump in, counselor.

So I know that I'm gonna refer back to PeopleSoft because we talked about people saw for probably 10 years.

And every year we had to come back with upgrades.

How many upgrades are we gonna have to do on UK?

UKG?

Yeah.

I I mean I think I believe Josh, correct me if I'm wrong.

I think all of the upgrades are included in that price.

So we won't every year hear you come back and say we need to do more with UKG.

Well, I I would imagine you know, every couple years there's gonna be a price increase just because the prices are gonna go up, but I don't think um based on software as a service as a model that oh, there's this extra 100K we have to pay for this upgrade.

I believe it's included in that, you know, this the 750,000 for licenses.

Also, for for what it's worth, I think that SWC, our workforce central, the software we're using, uh probably came out in the early 2000s, if I'm not wrong.

And you know, there's been some updates to make along the way, but talking about 20-ish years that it was really around for.

So we would expect, you know, looking ahead, we're getting into a newer version now, expect it to last about the same amount of time.

There may be some updates here and there, but I think to Mike's point, the the biggest ones are the ones you'd have to make right at the beginning, and the goal would be you're good for a long time after that.

So is there an urgency right now with a hundred days left in this administration to do this extra million dollars right now, or is there because I you know, I I keep thinking in the back of my mind like when we look at a transition to a new administration, there's going to be people changes, priority changes, etc.

etc.

etc.

Are we comfortable that the people that are here now, 90 days from now, some will be here, some won't, et cetera, et cetera.

Can this thing wait until new leadership gets here and make sure that the priorities that you're putting in front of us now are the same priorities that are gonna be sitting there January 15th?

Or are is it so urgent that we have to say, listen, no, here's this million dollars we have to move move move, or are we I guess is there an urgency?

Is there a 90-day urgency?

And that's a hard question for me to ask, so I apologize.

But no, I think it's a it's a fair question.

Um I I think there is a fair amount of urgency just based on you know our experience as far as getting projects done.

Um saying we're gonna have this done in a year and a half is still probably a little ambitious.

Um I think once we get closer to that March 31st uh deadline, um, you know, worst case scenario would be okay.

We're going back to paper timesheets, and I I know police and fire they're happy with their digital, you know, tracking overtime digitally, whereas yeah, we we'd be going back to paper timesheets um looking at you know brushing up on the AS400.

So this this million would put us at what like nine and a half around nine and a half million total thus far.

Like is there on project for the whole project?

Is there an end in sight dollars-wise?

Yeah, so I think the the memo that um sent to you last night, uh the appendix B included like a cost benefit analysis.

Um just trying to project um some of some of those costs going up for five years.

Um year one, um, really it's it's the licenses and that implementation cost.

Um taking off the contingency internal staff time between those two costs.

Um you know, the 900K would hit capital spending.

Um the the licenses would need to come out of operating.

Um then where the hell was I going with this?

What was your next what was your question again?

The if we would have additional requests as far as the cost.

I think I'm just kind of asking a big 30,000 foot view, like where's the end?

Where where does it end?

Total spend.

Yeah.

That was my point.

Um I think after this 900k, hopefully the capital spending ends, and then we would have a recurring annual operating cost of about three uh 750,000 dollars for the licenses.

I think um honestly, I I totally understand this technology piece.

How you know counselors think about how your phones every time you turn around, there's an upgrade and a need in the phone.

But my biggest concern is like so.

We have all these, you know, I'm trying to understand this AS400, Oracle, people saw the site, like which one, like is there any other one that this farming side is is any other municipality you know are using this, and like have they reported on how well it's working or not working?

Um because I know it's like one of those things we're jumping in and we're hoping that it works, right?

But we're also hoping that it works with a lot of money, right?

So, do we have any other um municipalities that have used this to say, hey, this is working well, or these are our glitches, or this is going to compare some?

We did check some references both with UKG Pro and with Mosaic as a partner.

So I think some of those is I'm gonna blank a little bit off the top of my head, but I think that they included uh some groups in Seattle, Washington, Detroit, um, and some other smaller municipalities.

I think South Bend Indiana was another one that we talked to because they had had experience with UKG.

Um and all of them said good things, especially about Mosaic as an implementation partner that Mosaic was really able to meet them where they were at to get them across the finish line.

Um so that gave us a lot of confidence.

Yeah.

I think you know, picking up on Council Caldwell and and what we just heard.

You know, I've only been around for about two years, but I've seen about five different versions of that Gantt chart.

And I'll be you know perfectly frank and say I don't believe what I see there because I've already seen five versions of that.

And what I've learned is that it's not the product, it's not the implementation services, it's you know what we see when we look in the mirror.

And so, you know, with EY and Oracle, now we're talking about UKG and Mosaic.

What has shifted and changed internally to make me believe what I see up there?

And I think about you know, mapping our business processes, documentation, um, you know, computers do what you tell them.

And if we don't have our processes clearly defined, outlined, articulated, then no matter what product and what implementation service we choose, it's going to fail.

And that's what we were looking at in the past, and I'm afraid that's what we're still looking at.

Don't have a great response to that.

I I think it's an excellent point you raised, just because I think that's what we were running into probably over the last you know five years of this project.

I've been here for a year and a half now, and I totally know what you're talking about.

I've seen a lot of those things.

I think that in these last nine months, we've been especially productive as far as transitioning a lot of that work to internal resources and making sure we're able to meet some of those challenges internally rather than you know relying on some external partner to fix all of our problems for us.

It's about owning our problems ourselves and finding better ways to manage around them.

Um so I can I can think of you know, no short list of things that over these last nine months, things that I wasn't even aware at the beginning of those nine months were gonna be challenges, and I think in the past, those were our roadblocks that caused this to delay, and I think that we've actually you know faced a lot of those and and fixed a lot of those over the last nine months, even without that external support.

So the hope would be going forward, there's less of those surprising moments.

And when you you know, to a point made earlier, I think what's gonna be different about this this time is that we've we've gone through that process of trying to implement payroll before.

There shouldn't be surprises this time because we ran into all those things, and from that from that experience now, we believe this is a better path for us to go, even if just for not splitting ourselves up between multiple systems and making this a much more complicated process.

But you know, we have we we got all the way down to to close to go live with another payroll system, and and there's no shortage of things that were surprises along that process that now aren't going to be for us this time.

So everything runs smoothly from here out, and we have no more hang ups, which we know that's not gonna happen, but let's say that that did happen.

How far out are we from throwing the AS400 out the window one into handing HR a real capital management system that is modern day, not 1938?

Um so the AS400 questions tricky because you know, keep the AS400 does a lot of things for the city.

I mean, we're still doing water billing out of AS400.

So let's say throw out the AS400 for payroll.

I think um, what's our slide say?

I mean, end of Q2, that's when we would be in a new HRIS.

Yeah.

Um, but I mean, really, I I don't think we'd be paying on that until that that March 2027 day.

I think so probably two different stories here.

One is gonna be what Mosaic and any implementation partner would tell us, which is that we can build this for you in this amount of time.

We also know the challenges that we face as a municipality, so it's probably somewhere between those extremes that we're actually gonna land here.

So, you know, they're saying they could build it within six months, but that's gonna be provided everything goes perfectly, provided we've got you know all of our ducks in a row.

And while I feel like we're much further down that road than we were in previous attempts, um I'm not super optimistic that we're gonna be able to meet exactly that six month timeline they're saying.

So that's why I'm thinking, you know, we're looking more realistically towards end of next year we have this all done, and and you know, that allowing then the time to test it sufficiently in a way that we just couldn't with Oracle back in the day because we were just out of time.

The end of this year is just a timekeeping.

Correct.

Yes, yeah.

Okay, so we you've been you've been um I mean we've been the city um dealing with the water department first, because I understand he's the one that brings the most challenges, so we can learn more from trying to implement there as we go into the next department.

So if I remember correctly, we talked about parks being the next department, correct?

And then to be able in what 13, 14 weeks to to be able to complete that.

Are we gonna simultaneously be bringing the departments in?

Or is it department by department?

How is the implementation of this?

Yeah, that's a good question.

So just to start with parks because you mentioned that.

Uh water's live right now, but we're in parallel testing with parks, and you know, we'll probably take that division by division because each of them looks so different.

There's season changes, things like that.

But a good handful of those are parallel testing at 99%, which to me says they're pretty much ready to go.

So the goal would be a little bit of both.

You know, we want to try and expand our efforts at the same time as let's take them one at a time so that we can actually finish one before getting ourselves too spread out.

Um water is live right now on this.

Correct.

Yeah.

So Commissioner, when I heard you earlier laying out the short, medium, long-term objectives and goals of the project.

What I heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, really the major efficiencies to be gained occur within that timekeeping component that we've I might give me a little bit right, more or less.

Um, I look at the short term, midterm thinking about timekeeping, which we've heard for a while now is right on the finish line, right?

We're we're right there.

We're right there.

Um, but we still only have 14% launched in and live, meaning that there's still 86% not there.

Um why are we not just simply focusing on getting that done, absorbing in and you know, benefiting from that efficiency and then thinking about the HRIS down the line?

Because again, correct me if I'm wrong, but when we get timekeeping up and running, we can still process payroll through the AS400.

Do you mind if I mic?

So I think to answer your question, I think we are doing that.

I think that we are focusing all resources to getting this done for the time being.

I think that what Mike brought up earlier is that those risks for other things, such as you know, that end of life of software.

I would just imagine if we were to put all resources towards going live with this timekeeping software, and then it ends, we've kind of gotten ourselves into a bad situation there, where like create a bunch of change management to get people used to digital systems, then go back to paper timesheets to presumably go back to digital.

So trying to avoid situations like that, also acknowledging the risk of you know, payroll operationally being dependent on you know, a system that is that is pretty antiquated and maintained by people who are of retirement age.

So trying to try to thread that needle of mitigating those risks.

We're also threading a needle of 750k per year, which is a fairly large capital outlay.

Um when we talk about end of life, that doesn't mean the product shuts down, disappears and goes away on that day, correct?

Yeah.

And so is it still usable after end of life?

It's just not being updated, not being maintained.

What does end of life?

I don't know if it's end of engineering.

Um, you know, I I'm an accountant, I can't really speak to like that that specific terms.

And how many times does end of life get kicked down the line?

Right.

Yeah, I mean, so this one I you know, again, would you know request that you Google the end of life day because I know that it was something that was um being thrown out there with PeopleSoft or GL software, whereas that is truly a 10-year rolling.

I think a couple two years ago it would have been 2034, now it's 2036.

Um I think you know, People Soft, our GL and AP processing um software, you know, that end of life conversation or argument isn't uh doesn't really hold water.

How many um softwares do we have?

Over a hundred over a hundred software?

I mean, what whatever the IT audit uh, you know, uh maybe maybe you know 144?

It's a lottery.

Commissioner, so um more than half your staff is either I mean the people that support the payroll, but also two of them are already retired, two of them are near retirement.

They could go tomorrow if the state offered a buyout or anything like that.

So I mean, has there been any kind of provision to train anybody else to have a familiarity with the AS400 or anything?

I mean, any personnel I'm I'm really worried that this might become a reality, and then we're really gonna be stuck.

Yes, I mean for payroll clerks have are trained on you know, input um of how to you know process you know, wages in AS400, it's really that infrastructure, those AS400 programmers.

Um, for example, I know uh Kathleen Wilson, um we had a situation last week we had uh an officer retroactively go on 207 C that we had uh amend the W2 for 2024 and we had to clear out their tax withholdings in 2025.

I don't know how to do that.

Our our payroll clerks, payroll supervisor, don't know how to do that.

That really requires um, you know, uh an AS400 programmer that it's just not something that you can you hire easily as far as AS400 programmers.

Um this is looking at moving that programming externally to UKG and that we would always have someone available to help.

I mean, you know, we're eight at the end of it, it should be eight years of this administration, and we've known this for a while, uh, that we probably have to face something like this, and we've had some, you know, obviously we've had some missteps along the way here.

Yeah, and now we're talking in three months, everything's gonna be okay.

I mean, as far as we'll be up to snuff and at the end of 2025.

Uh I mean that that's the goal.

Um I think 14% right now are trained.

I mean, I got texts from some people who are pretty nervous in this building that you know they haven't been trained on anything yet.

Yeah, and I think we'll all continue to offer additional trainings.

Um I think the last training for managers was offered a couple months ago, and I think we do plan on offering another training.

Are you getting enough resources from everybody in this building to get this done?

Yeah, I think so.

And I I mean, just some of this um as far as the contractors, we just don't, you know, with some of the software, it's just so niche and specialized.

We we you know, a general IT programmer um doesn't know some of this, which is why we need to look externally.

Okay.

To be a little bit on on what um Councillor Holden is saying, so mosaic is gonna be helping implementation and take us through these first steps and stages.

At some point, will the city be able to manage this with our own staff?

That's that's certainly the goal.

So the goal would be that as Mosaic is building this out, we've got resources internally kind of watching over their shoulders as they're putting things together.

Also, you know, in the room helping design the architecture of how the system works, so that we have a really clear idea of how it's working.

I say that with a caveat that still this is you know, a software that we can seek additional support from UKG, you know, as as part of the license cost that we're paying.

So I'm not gonna say our internal resources are able to solve every possible thing that comes up, but the goal is that they're handling you know, 80% of those things.

It's gonna be those few exception things where maybe it's something even a fault with the system where we have to flag that to UKG so they can rectify that.

So we may see an economy there.

So commissioner, how many people did you have started the year on this payroll modernization?

When you started it out, how many people did you have with you?

Uh as far as like the entire project team?

Entire project, how many people did you get like from other departments?

Uh somewhere between nine to ten.

Nine to ten.

So you didn't do it and maybe on everything.

And it because it does fall, does it fall on you?

Because your finance commissioner to get payroll process?

Yeah.

So this falls on you.

I understand what I'll do with.

I know it falls on you.

But but if there's any doubts about this project, or you because right now it seems that we're we're fighting the clock.

It's got to get done by January 1st.

When Ben Walsh leave Mayor Walsh leaves the office, we gotta get this done.

High priority.

And there's gonna be things that we're gonna overlook and might not.

In other words, we're looking at a clock.

And you're putting pressure on yourself and members of this committee.

I mean, there might be some people out there who want to offer committee, not on this commission.

Maybe people are retired, want to offer you advice.

Maybe there's somebody else out there.

But if it seems to me at this, as this counselor, it's like we gotta get it done now.

And it's like we gotta beat the clock.

And I just don't think uh respectfully, that's on you shouldn't have that pressure.

It should have that pressure.

Yeah, so I think with Mosaic, um, I I think we're we all realize that none of this work is gonna get done before the end of the Walsh administration.

I think with with with timekeeping, the goal is still to try to wrap up by the calendar year.

Um I think previously in April, uh, when we were here, we were ideally like end of September we'd be done with the rollout.

Um, whereas you know, we we that has been pushed back um two to three months due to some uh due to some issues with with timekeeping rollout.

Okay, thank you.

You gotta um understand us being skeptical because we've been around in Israel for some years and we started off with the people saw, and we spent millions of dollars doing people soft, and now you're coming back talking about UKG Pro or whatever.

So, you know, we have to really digest all of this because you're talking about quite a bit of money.

And annually you're talking about what, 745,000?

That's a lot of money to just keep rolling in when we don't even know what we're gonna end up with as a finished product.

If I could, I think the skepticism is really warranted.

I think that part of our pivot here has been uh maybe to focus on somewhat of a strengths-based approach of like let's build off of what we know is working.

So we know that timekeeping hasn't been finished yet, but you know, realistically we've had this team in place working on this for about a year now, nine months a year, something like that.

And in that time, I think we've accomplished a lot.

I wish we would have had it all done by now, but I still think that's a reasonable timeline to get it all done with the resources we have.

Um so the goal is is to, you know, rather than having to keep that kind of an asilo and then start something else totally new, totally afresh, uh, building around that because we know that we have the team that can that can continue on using that software and will not take the same you know, year timeline of trying to figure out how does this business actually operate.

We have a lot of that you know, institutional knowledge now built up along the way.

So I I say that all uh totally granting your point that I think it's fair to be skeptical over the last few years, but I would also just point out you know the progress that has been uh made over these last nine, ten months without any external help.

I think really why we're coming before you is because we're we're reaching that point where we can't do a whole lot more without some external help.

We're reaching things that are just outside of what we can do.

We believe we can finish off.

But you're saying if we keep the AS 400, we would have to hire people.

So don't we have to hire people with this, right?

With the UKG pro or whatever it is, yes, right?

Yeah, yeah, we would still want someone on staff to help with it.

Um but as far as some of the issues that we run into like the AS Horner today, that we have programmers, you know, on the payroll, um, you know, they would ideally be dealing with like general IT issues as opposed to like specific, oh, we had this issue with UKG, like we would go to them um for this.

And as far as the spending, you know, that appendix A in the memo, you're not you're not wrong.

I mean, I think 2023, 2024 really illustrates that that external spending did it got out of control.

Um and what we're trying to show with that 2025 column, you know, there are licenses associated with Chrono, so that's supporting that 186,000, but um, you know, we're we're trying to do this on the cheap now, as best as we can.

Um, the the steer island bait invoices, those really pertain to 2024, and the only contractors we've been using, um, Central City Data Services, Kathleen Wilson, uh, Mythics as well, Mythics goes away.

So, you know, you had that spending of 1.8 million in 2023, 3.6 million in 2024.

Um, whereas you know, we're trying to do this with lower cost contractors to the best of our ability.

And like Buffalo Rochester, are they using the same?

I think they're in work day, um, which is just another platform.

And does the county use they use UKGR uh they use Cronos as well yes which one uh that like our workforce central they use it yeah it's tough I'm just be honest a lot of money heard it was tough yeah it's tough because we've heard like you said not to discredit anything you guys are saying I really believe that you guys are trying to do the best but I've heard about four or five different options in the last several years so you know you just want we want to believe that this is the right one.

I'd like to point out one of the conclusions recommendations of the IT audit was to have a third party you know professional that would kind of serve as a liaison between the council and the administration to kind of help build this trust in in each other um you know I think we all recognize that there's a problem we all know that we need a solution um there just is the lack of of trust between you know the the two institutions um you know ourselves and and the team that is doing the build out um I would be open to you know some type of third party consultation to to help maybe all of us right um you know think through these options uh again it was one of the recommendations noted in the IT audit and so um you know we can potentially explore that option um I'm just trying to think about ways to overcome the obstacles that are between us right now I mean we're still gonna continue with SWC rollout um I think uh you know that that's what we will plan on doing and um you know we can plan on having another committee meeting and if if it's uh you know monthly updates quarterly updates um that's what we'll provide counsel thank you anybody else all right I'll entertain the motion to adjourn so most second thank you very much adjourned just this week