Welcome to the Central West District Page!   
 

Regional Meetings
The Central West District held a meeting in New Port Richey on the 15th of December. Attendees came from New Port Richey, Safety Harbor, Treasure Island, Zephyrhills, Citrus County and Hillsborough County. While several of the presenting companies backed out at the last minute, this offered us the opportunity to have a daylong roundtable that proved very fruitful for many of us. One company that did not cancel out was ESRI. We asked ESRI to come in and present on what some of their current and future offerings would entail, and they also demo’d their free online offerings. This was designed as a presentation to Technology Professionals, as opposed to one given to the end users and data managers. We found that their free online offerings hold a lot of potential for both internal and external access.
 
The daylong roundtable was enjoyable and we were able to cover a variety of topics, including:
• “Who’s doing what with iPads” (nods to Roger Dean and company at Hillsborough County for the excellent information that they contributed)
• The nuts and bolts of patch management
• ISP variety and satisfaction • Thoughtful discussion on the upcoming RNC and the issues that this will bring to bear on the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County (again, nods to Roger Dean)
• And the omnipresent issue of Disaster Preparedness

We will schedule another meeting between the Winter and Summer conferences, more details to come.

Budgeting
Several conversations have been held between a few of us on budgeting and how to pay for needed items in the current budgetary and economic slump. One tool that we make extensive use of here at the City of New Port Richey is Repair and Replacement (R&R) Accounts.

Over the past 20 years or so, the City of New Port Richey has squirreled away money a little bit at a time in past Fiscal Years into R&R, basically a savings account. Continually adding these funds when the fiscal picture wasn’t so bleak has allowed us to build up a reserve that we have tapped a number of time for replacement of servers, iSeries (AS/400’s), desktops, and software.

Besides line items specifically designated as R&R contributions, we are also the recipient of any unused moneys in operating or capital accounts relating to computer supplies, hardware/software purchases, and so forth, as part of the City’s Fiscal Year-End cleanup process. At the end of the year, the unspent funds in those accounts are transferred to the ITC R&R account.

In the past, a purchase would involve a portion of funding from R&R (anywhere from 50%-90%), with the remainder budgeted from the appropriate funding source(s), e.g. the General Fund. This purchase would show up as a line item in the annual budget with full disclosure and discussion during budgetary hearings and City Council meetings, but it would have considerably less impact to the General Fund, or other funding sources, which would also be spelled out in the budget.

Many agencies have done this for years with big ticket items like Ladder Trucks and New Buildings, but this funding source has proven especially valuable to us now that the economy has been in the dumps. Even as we have had to endure slashing of budgets, we’ve been able to selectively purchase equipment and software by tapping this account at 100% of purchase costs.

We will continue to make purchases from R&R in the upcoming years. However, in order to prevent us from drawing our R&R to zero, we hope to be able to begin to incrementally reapportion the other funding sources in the next year or so.

Again, as we are currently tapping this R&R fund to make purchases at 100% of purchase costs, I would need to reiterate that we are using this funding source extremely carefully on an as needed basis. Just because someone thinks that they need something, doesn’t mean that it will be approved by ITC, the City Manager, or the City Council. We are taking selective cuts with a scalpel approach to parts of the enterprise where system replacements cannot be put off any longer.

Team Engagement
As most of us are gearing up for that wonderful process that we call Budget Preparation, I would like to remind everyone that you have a tremendous resource in place called the Central West Division of FLGISA. Please remember that we are here to lean on each other when assistance and information is needed.

You may have an internal team of 1, 2, or 10. However, if you factor in the CW membership, you have approximately 25 agencies ranging in size from tiny to massive, from small town to vast county agencies. This factors your “team” into the hundreds, so please remember to ask for help when needed and, more importantly, please offer help and assistance when you can.

The next problem that we gear up to tackle may be one that your agency brings to the table.

SunGard Public Sector’ ASP Platform
If any of you are currently SPS customers or have otherwise been considering their ASP offerings, please check back with me near the end of February. We have a go-live date with ASP on February 13th and I will be able to relay the good, the bad, and the ugly of that transition.

Clark Jones
Central West Director