Providence Committee on Finance-Thursday, May 23, 2024-5:30 PM

Good

evening. My name is Helen Anthony. I'm the chair of the committee on finance. I'm calling to order a regular meeting on two... On Thursday, May 23 at 05:34PM.

Madam clerk, would you please call the roll? Chairwoman Anthony? Present. Vice Chairman Taylor is absent. Counselor Andrew Wong?

Here. Counselor Graves is absent. Counselor Sanchez?

Here.

Three... Present. Two absent. No problem. Thank you so much.

And I would like to recognize... We have Suzanne here from the legal department. Thank you very much. We've got our auditor, Gina Cross. We have a wonderful person, Gina Hasbian, and Laura who he has.

Thank you very much. And with that, I... I'm going to rearrange the agenda this evening. I'm taking the board of mindcraft and supply issues first. So, if I may a motion to amend the agenda to take item number five first.

Second. Motion by councilor Randolph. Seconded by councilor Sanchez, all in favor. All. So with that, I think we have...

So... Yeah. That's... Hope that's... It was just...

With that, I think we have a presenter this evening. Are you presenting on the tab? Yes. That's you. Come on up.

Madam Terrence, would you mind if you're else joining us yet? I'm so sorry. We were... You're always welcome to be here. I do appreciate that.

Shall I swear them in? Yes, sir. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear on the penalty of perjury that the testimony that you're about to get is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do.

Please state your names and titles for the record. Crystal, name is Doctor. Jim

Silberia, CIO. Well,

thank you so much for joining us again. Alright. Please proceed on the BSI software matter.

Okay. So this request was sent to the board of contract, a few weeks ago, for request to pay the BSI software. This is a system that we use exclusively with our in for Lawson payroll system. And what the system does is it provides calculations for tax rates. This includes all federal taxes, all state taxes, and then local taxes to be applied to payroll.

Basically, our payroll check. So it's a service that we subscribe to. BSI, campuses, states, local audiences, federal federal tactical rates, social security rates, for example, Medicare. And as those change, which they tend to each year, BSI updates the rates, the the enrollment tables, different state rates as they change, and then publish updates, which we essentially download and install in our payroll system so that each payroll run has the most up to date, most accurate of the polling rates that are applied to the page. So for example, in in the last calendar in 2023, they...

We received 32 updates Yeah. Changes in, you know, there was a threshold, federal withholding rates, and state withholding rates. We use payroll tax calculation for over 3,000 entire paychecks and 5,700 active employees across city school and water in 38 states. Many of those are mentioned, but still important that those... That they were rolling in high quality.

So it's a it's a critical subscription that we maintain with BSI. It has been renewed every year since Lawson is first. It is part of the original procurement for Lawson. We... When we first went out the bid, it is kind of package up and together with it.

Lawson certifies that BSI, which is the software that they essentially certify with with their platform and can deliver those tax calculations and give us accurate bid. So we're gonna... We request a full contract. We renew our subscription each year, and we're requesting that this this committee also will prove better.

And may I ask, does this be how much it usually is approximately for the annual re... Renewal?

Yes. So this year, the renewal is $14,298.64. Since I've been working with this, there have been some modest increases. Over the past several years, it's gone from, you $12,000 about ten years ago. Now it's a little more than $14,000.

We we typically anticipate many of our software subscriptions increase three to 5% per year. That's just the general across the board increase that we see in the industry. So this has increased a couple of questions.

And when does this contract expire, and when is this open... This update finish?

So the current subscription that we have expired on May 31. Okay. We we did submit this to the board of contract actually about two months ago when we... First Saturday. They've been asking them when we have a quote.

Purchasing did advertise this on on statewide in there to see if there are any other interested bidders. We didn't receive any. And so then we went ahead with the, yeah, important health recognition meeting trying to get this completed and approved and signed for that May 31 message.

Okay. Great. Any questions? No. Yeah.

I'm sorry. You're joined by program in Charter. Thank you very much for joining us. Yes. Counselor's gonna tell you.

Thank you for this very helpful presentation of what exactly this contract is. My only question, do we use BSI, Brandon, else on your software? Is this the only... Like, you know, what

we have in front of Any other department that you'd be aware of? As far as I'm aware, this is the only use of BSI systems, any system that BSI has in the city. This is their primary business. This their business of tax. So this is one of their core products.

They do work at other verticals and, you know, retail and manufacturing. Anyone that's has to ask some type of service like this or imagine they do the research themselves and and look at that. We rely on service because, like I said, we have employees that have been in 38 states as well as, you know, federal regulations that need to be bought. So it's it's... We find another file and ask back to use this.

But do I have any other questions? This Yeah. No. And you would like

to make a motion? Yes. And

what is the reason why it comes to finance and not just approved by the board of my jobs?

It might make a, like, answer. We cannot matter in our auditor. Would that be upright? It's Yeah. According to twenty one dash twenty six two, it's a performance sole source vendor.

It's not bid out, so it's a request to pay. And I know it's a proprietary software, but it is not bid out, so it gets referred for that purpose.

So it's not bid out because they're unique. They're the only one that actually performed this, and I've known it for how many years in the city?

Well, so this is going to kind of roll into my mess requests that I have. So we've been using Lawson software. So the company is Inform. The software is called Lawson. That is our our ERP system.

That is the system that we use for payroll as well as our finances, our our retirement system, our benefits, and HR system as well. That system was brought up about twenty years ago and was awarded to the Lawson the Lawson at that time. We adopted that. When we committed to the Lawson back and quarterback, we also included several other services. The SIS one.

Lawson doesn't have some tax calculation system. They rely on third party members as well, and this was the vendor that we certified at the time and still recommend and certify. This is the the benefit works with the loss and clearance. So we have not gone out to bid for BSI tax calculation or tax calculation in general over the past twenty years. We've renewed that one.

They pretty much just subcontracted out that the BSI function. Yes. And and so that was twenty years ago that we put it out for RFP. Yes. Why has it...

Why why that not? And why So I'm happy

to discuss that now. Yeah. Next. Bryce. We have...

We we actually

have that coming up. Can we save that question? Sure. Unless you... Are we comfortable voting?

Maybe we should have spoken about these together. But we also have the number six that we are going to use.

Yeah. I just have one more question on this one. Yeah. Okay. So that...

Because it it sounds like we haven't taken forward on this. Yeah.

So this is just a onetime payment? This is an annual payment? Annual payment. This is for that progress year. For this year.