Article published October 23, 2007
Council panel favors keeping SAP software
Mayor's plan to solicit new bids is revised
By TOM TROY
BLADE STAFF WRITER
The city should stay with the multi-million-dollar software package it unanimously adopted two years ago rather than switch gears now, a Toledo City Council committee agreed yesterday.
Council's information services committee amended a Finkbeiner administration plan to seek bids on new financial accounting software, at an expected cost of $8 million to $12 million.
Instead, the committee agreed it wanted the administration to use the SAP Americas Inc. software that was installed early last year in the Department of Public Utilities as its billing system, and just bid out the cost of implementing the SAP software.
SAP was selected by an internal committee during the administration of former Mayor Jack Ford.
The outcome appeared to be a victory for Councilman Betty Shultz, who has been urging her colleagues not to allow the administration to dump SAP as its software platform.
And she contends the $300,000 the city is spending on consultants and other planning to evaluate different planning systems is "a total waste.""I can't understand why we need to go back and second-guess to the tune of $300,000," she said, noting that SAP was selected in 2005 from 14 bidders.
The change, if it is accepted by the Finkbeiner administration, would ensure that the entire city administration operates under one software system, rather than two potentially competing vendors.
The administration's proposal was on council's agenda for a vote last Tuesday, but got pulled at the last minute.
Whether the mayor's office will accept the committee's recommendation was not clear yesterday.
"The decision is not made at this time," said David Moebius, assistant chief operating officer for Mayor Carty Finkbeiner.
The city has been discussing for years the need to replace the financial software that doesn't provide up-to-date numbers and is not accessible to most of the department directors.
Joining Mrs. Shultz verbally in support of the SAP system were committee members Rob Ludeman and Mark Sobczak. Committee member Mike Craig and council President Michael Ashford raised questions that also appeared to indicate support for the SAP system. Committee member Frank Szollosi was absent from the meeting.
Mrs. Shultz elicited testimony that when council agreed unanimously in 2005 to buy its new utilities billing system from SAP at a cost of $5.5 million, it also was laying the groundwork for conversion of financial accounting.
She noted that eight of those 12 members are still on council.
Jim Albin, vice president for information services for Mercy Health Partners and a member of the mayor's information services advisory committee that has been in place since 1998, said, "SAP developed the whole suite of applications that you need, and you just turn on the modules."
However, Mr. Albin said a new financial accounting system with SAP probably would still cost the same $8 million to $12 million.
Bob Williams, director of the Department of Public Utilities, said the committee that selected SAP worked long and hard, and did so with the understanding that it would be expandable to serve as the city's financial accounting software.
Mr. Moebius said that committee didn't represent the finance and human resources departments, which have their own particular functions.
Mr. Williams said the committee had members appointed from finance and human resources, but after the first two or three meetings the only people attending were from utilities and information and computer technology. He acknowledged that SAP might not have been the winning bidder if finance had played a bigger role in the selection.
Contact Tom Troy at:
tomtroy@theblade.com
or 419-724-6058.
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