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TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: Jolene Coulter, Director of Purchasing
DATE: November 12, 2024
SUBJECT:
A resolution to execute a contract with Vertosoft for the purchase of OpenGov E-Procurement and Contract Management Systems to modernize and standardize procurement functions across the City.
PURPOSE:
The Purchasing Division wishes to move to an E-Procurement and Contract Management system which will centralize the City's procurement process, create more competition, and mitigate risk with approved templates and contracts.
BACKGROUND:
Currently, the City creates and maintains all the procurements and contracts manually. Staff posts all actual documents, advertisements published in the newspaper, addendums, tabulations and award information manually to the City's website and DemandStar along with updating several excel spreadsheets for tracking.
Informal Solicitations were being posted/managed on a separate GovSpend site where only items $5,000-$25,000 were being posted. This site actually charges the City an annual fee to use.
While each project manager/division is supposed to manage and monitor their multi-year agreements, the Purchasing staff is also monitoring terms to ensure renewals or bids are published timely to allow for review, selection and Committee/Council approval process if required.
The Purchasing Division, with the participation of Public Works/Engineering, Central Facilities and Information Technology reviewed the capabilities of 21 different E-Procurement systems and narrowed the selection to five who had current cooperative contracts (Appian, Bonfire, CobbleStone, OpenGov and Oracle). Additional information was requested to ensure they were able to provide government based product, supplier engagement, vendor portal, informal solicitations, AI based tools, solicitation development and evaluation and award management. Four of the vendors responded, demonstrations were set up and after a consensus of staff a second more in depth demonstration was held with Bonfire and OpenGov.
After the second demonstration and reference checks, all staff agreed that OpenGov would be the best solution for the City.
DISCUSSION:
OpenGov is an end-to-end procurement solution that includes the following modules: solicitation development, supplier engagement, evaluation and awards, and contract management. The system will engage more vendors, ensure fair and transparent evaluations, and automate contract management. OpenGov is a cloud-based service. The benefits of this form of software is that OpenGov will maintain the platform for software updates and security fixes, as well as provide the hardware and infrastructure to deliver the service. They have an unlimited user model to encourage adoption citywide and additional training is included post-deployment at no additional costs.
Moving to this system, staff will no longer have to scan paper bid documents, bid tabulations will be calculated electronically and eliminating math errors. Bid/proposal submissions will include all required information or it cannot be submitted. Bid openings will no longer be required by the City Clerk's office as we'll be able to open all the bids electronically at the due date/time with the press of a button. Retention requirements will still be met, but the documents will be electronic and stored by OpenGov. This will save hours weekly for the Purchasing Division, allowing more time to assist other divisions with specification research.
OpenGov will be purchased through Vertosoft, an authorized OpenGov reseller, using the NCPA-Omnia Contract 01-165. The cooperative contract terms are May 1, 2023 through April 30, 2026 with optional two 1-year renewals through April 30, 2028.
In 2024/2025 the software costs will be expensed in account 101-2526-415.64-10 ($6,438.50 and $77,262.00) and the implementation costs will be charged 101-2526-415.32-20 ($43,979.00) Software costs are anticipated at a 5% increase after 2025.
IMPACT STATEMENT:
Approving this purchase will modernize and standardize the City's procurement process, ease the contract management process and reduce paper waste.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Purchasing Division recommends approval of this purchase.
cc: Finance Committee
CITY OF AURORA, ILLINOIS
RESOLUTION NO. _________
DATE OF PASSAGE ________________
title
A Resolution to execute a contract with Vertosoft for the purchase of OpenGov E-Procurement and Contract Management Systems to modernize and standardize procurement functions across the City in the amount of $127,679.50 through 2025 and annual software costs through 2028.
body
WHEREAS, the City of Aurora has a population of more than 25,000 persons and is, therefore, a home rule unit under subsection (a) of Section 6 of Article VII of the Illinois Constitution of 1970; and
WHEREAS, subject to said Section, a home rule unit may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and
WHEREAS, the City's procurement process is very manual with multiple updates on the website, advertisements in the paper, addendums, evaluations and awards, and contract management in various spreadsheets; and
WHEREAS, to modernize and standardize procurement functions and contract management, purchasing submitted a decision package to purchase software; and
WHEREAS, the City included multiple divisions with its search and selected OpenGov, through Vertosoft on the NCPA-Omnia Cooperative contract 01-165; and
WHEREAS, funding has been budgeted in 2024/2025 in account 101-2526-415.64-10 and 101-2526-415.32-20.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Aurora, Illinois, as follows: the Director of Purchasing is hereby authorized to execute a contract with Vertosoft for the purchase of OpenGov E-Procurement and Contract Management Systems and issue necessary orders through April 30, 2028.