Title
Recommendation to Authorize the City Manager (or Designee) to Execute a One-Year Agreement with OpenGov, Inc., for the Communications and Reporting for Citizen Engagement and Operational Performance Solutions, in an Amount Not to Exceed $114,438, with the Option of Four One-Year Extensions, for a Total Five-Year Compensation Not to Exceed $382,897. (Information Technology 2611)
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
City of Alameda (City) staff is seeking the City Council’s approval to purchase additional modules of the OpenGov platform that include Citizen Engagement and Operational Performance Management. These additional modules are designed to increase transparency and will be implemented first by the Police and Public Works Departments, with the ability to be used across all City departments as needed. Working with the Alameda Police Department, OpenGov will enhance their ability to display data from historical and current police systems, allowing staff and the general public to review trends. For Public Works, OpenGov will assist in displaying information regarding capital projects, including status, metrics, and mapping.
BACKGROUND
OpenGov is a leader in cloud-based tools built for local government to achieve better budgeting, performance, communications, reporting, and open data that ultimately result in better outcomes for the public.
For the last three years, OpenGov has supported the City’s community engagement efforts through the Open Town Hall platform. This solution helps the City survey and engage our residents on key community items such as transportation choices and climate action strategies. In January, we expanded our usage of OpenGov, using the Stories module on a pilot basis to display historical police data and trends in conjunction with our new website launch. This effort received positive community feedback.
While all City departments will have access to the OpenGov platform, we plan to initiate the new modules with data from the Police and Public Works Departments, share outcomes and lessons learned with other departments, and determine how we can expand our use more broadly.
The City will only be entering non-confidential information into the OpenGov platform, such as demographic information, crime statistics, arrest data, traffic data, service calls reported, sewer lines in need of repair, streets paved by year, permits issued per month, and fees paid. The OpenGov platform will help the City display our non-confidential data in a transparent and accessible way. No confidential data is shared on or with the OpenGov platform including names, dates of birth, social security numbers, phone numbers, and addresses.
DISCUSSION
OpenGov is a Redwood City-based technology company founded in 2012 that provides the world’s first integrated cloud solution built specifically for public sector budgeting, performance management, and citizen engagement. OpenGov software is designed to improve municipal agencies’ operational efficiencies, such as collaborative budget development and reporting, as well as promote government accountability with better citizen engagement and transparency tools.
Over 2,000 public agencies in 49 states use OpenGov software. The agreement with OpenGov includes modules for Citizen Engagement and Operational Performance, as well as Standard Integration for third party systems data extraction and a one-time deployment fee for product configuration, setup, training, and ongoing support.
The Communications and Reporting module allows staff to create online dashboards with graphs of relevant data for staff and residents to measure performance and understand data trends. This module allows for a robust electronic interaction with residents, including online polling and detailed storytelling of programs initiated by the City.
OpenGov has provided a detailed project plan to ensure a smooth rollout and support while we launch their tools:
Citizen Engagement: The OpenGov platform will allow the City to effectively communicate its strategic plans to the public, provide transparency to the community, and build trust with our citizens. Additionally, the OpenGov platform will provide the ability for us to poll and survey our constituents in an online format for wide reaching feedback. This will provide our City Council and leadership the ability to more easily receive and understand feedback on our City’s plans and priorities from the community.
Operational Performance Management and Strategic Planning: The OpenGov platform will enable the City to track each department’s strategic plan internally in easy to use dashboards, while providing department heads and City management the ability to see executive views of City performance. OpenGov uniquely ties together financial and non-financial data from across the City’s current systems into a single system.
The OpenGov platform will benefit the entire City as we focus on merging data from different disparate software systems into the OpenGov Cloud platform. OpenGov will provide internal efficiencies and streamline information sharing, which will increase data-driven decision making and allow us share this important information with the public.
Staff recommends awarding a one year contract to OpenGov in the amount of $114,438. The contract also permits an annual extension of the contract on a year-to-year basis, for up to four additional years, up to $382,897 in total compensation for the contract, at the sole discretion of the City Manager, based upon satisfactory performance of all aspects of the contract and subject to budgetary approval.
ALTERNATIVES
We are limited in our ability to quickly access data and reports for internal use and in our ability to provide transparent reports and data to the public. If we do not engage OpenGov for these services, we can: 1) continue to go without these transparency tools, 2) spend financial and personnel resources to build a custom solution, 3) seek out other software platforms that are aimed at increasing transparency and making more data publically available and accessible, or 4) discontinue use of OpenGov.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
Budget for the agreement is included in the Strategic Technology Plan Projects fund #90003704 for the one-year pilot. The one-year pilot with OpenGov is valued at $114,438. It includes the following software licensing and professional services:
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Implementation Costs: |
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Communications & Reporting: Citizen Engagement, Operational Performance, Standard Integration (Fund #90003704) |
$60,788.00 |
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OpenGov Deployment One Time Fee: Product Configuration, setup, training, and ongoing support to help deploy and adopt OpenGov solutions throughout city departments (Fund 16/17 STATE COPS Grant #218017) |
$53,650.00 |
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Total: |
$114,438.00 |
The Strategic Technology Plan Projects fund # 90003704 was identified to provide initial funding for the Communications & Reporting and the STATE COPS Grant Fund #218017 will fund the One Time Deployment Fee.
Once the one-year pilot is successfully implemented and additional departments begin using the development tools, funding after the first year for the annual ongoing costs for software maintenance will be requested in the Information Technology Department operating budget as part of the City’s biennial budget process. This cost would consist of the $60,788 (plus annual 4% inflation adjustment) for each additional year renewed past the initial term (one year). For four years, the maximum permitted by the attached agreement, subscription renewals would amount to $268,459.40, which brings the total value of the contract to $382,897.
MUNICIPAL CODE/POLICY DOCUMENT CROSS REFERENCE
Pursuant to Alameda Municipal Code section 2-61.7 (Joint Purchases with Public Agencies), purchase of equipment, among other items, may be purchased without resorting to formal bidding provided that the price paid by another public agency was itself the subject of competitive bidding. Staff has confirmed that the price proposed by OpenGov is below the NASPO price list offered by a NASPO vendor, which is also an authorized reseller of OpenGov. Additionally, for procurement purposes, OpenGov’s software platform is the only integrated multi-tenant Software as a Service (“SaaS”) solution that can meet and/or exceed the City’s desired goals for communications, reporting, and civic engagement.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This action is not a project for the purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 10561(b)(3) as there is no possibility that this action may have a significant effect on the environment.
CLIMATE IMPACTS
There are no known climate impacts from the proposed action (agreement approval and implementation).
RECOMMENDATION
Authorize the City Manager (or Designee) to execute a one-year agreement with OpenGov, Inc., for the communications and reporting for citizen engagement and operational performance solutions, in an amount not to exceed $114,438, with the option of four one-year extensions, for a total five-year compensation not to exceed $382,897.
CITY MANAGER RECOMMENDATION
The City Manager concurs with staff recommendation. Another alternative would be to approve the initial contract, and limit the number of extensions.
Respectfully submitted,
Carolyn Hogg, Director of Information Technology
By,
Sarah Henry, Public Information Officer
Financial Impact section reviewed,
Elena Adair, Finance Director
Exhibit:
1. Contract
cc: Eric Levitt, City Manager