Well now we see the move worked. Sure want the only software on the table for 4 million badly. Comments included.

CJOnline / The Topeka Capital-Journal - City employee e-mails helped change ERP vote

City employee e-mails helped change ERP vote
Workers happy veto override keeps new software system intact
By Tim Hrenchir
The Capital-Journal
Published Thursday, April 17, 2008
Topeka Police Department accountant Amanda Meyer feels certain the business software system the city is putting in place will enable its employees to work better and faster.

So when it became clear two weeks ago that Mayor Bill Bunten would try to void the purchase of that enterprise resource planning system, Meyer sent the city council an e-mail explaining why she thought the system was essential.



Anthony S. Bush / The Capital-Journal
Tina Loyd, city of Topeka accounting manager, practices on the new enterprise resource planning software system during a class Wednesday at City Hall. City employees lobbied the city council through e-mails to override the mayor and buy the Lawson system.
AT A GLANCE

Q: Has the cost for the city to acquire and implement an enterprise resource planning software system risen over the past seven months?

A: No. The resolution the council approved by overriding Mayor Bill Bunten's veto Tuesday arranges for the contract amount to be the same the council authorized last September, which was about $3.86 million, with $400,000 more coming from the city's general fund.

Q: Where is the city in terms of putting the ERP system in place?

A: City spokesman David Bevens said the city "has not missed a beat" in moving forward with implementing the ERP system and still plans to have it completely in place by March 31, 2009.

Q: What happens next regarding the police helicopter purchase?

A: Deputy Mayor Jeff Preisner has asked interim city attorney Braxton Copley to prepare a proposal for the council to consider that would void the purchase. Preisner said Copley had told him the council would need to approve such a measure to conclude the matter.
City spokesman David Bevens said Meyer's message was the first of many the council received from city employees before it voted 7-2 Tuesday evening to override Bunten's veto of a resolution reauthorizing the ERP purchase. The swing votes came from council members Lana Kennedy and Brett Blackburn, who opposed the purchase April 1 but voted in favor of it Tuesday.

Kennedy said Wednesday that a flood of e-mails from city workers expressing their heartfelt support for the ERP system convinced her to switch sides. She said employees reminded her of the system's importance and of how much time and effort the city has put into implementing it.

The council last September initially overrode Bunten's veto of the purchase of the ERP system, which the city began implementing in January. But that purchase was put back before the council after interim city attorney Braxton Copley recently suggested it needed to reauthorize the transaction because documents involved failed to meet requirements of the Kansas cash basis law.

The council on April 1 voted 5-4 — with Kennedy, Blackburn, John Alcala and Sylvia Ortiz dissenting — to reauthorize the ERP purchase. Bunten three days later vetoed the measure, with votes from seven council members being necessary to override.

If the city had voided the purchase, Meyer said, the three weeks she spent being trained to use the ERP system would have gone to waste. The city since Jan. 5 has been putting the system in place, with five Lawson employees currently working in Topeka to implement it and train city employees on how to use it. ERPs integrate, or try to integrate, all data and processes of an organization into a unified system.

Meyer said she told council members in an e-mail two weeks ago about how the ERP system will improve city operations in such areas as sharing of information.

The council got e-mails from other city employees, including human resources director Jacque Russell, who said she was familiar with Lawson ERP software from having worked with it at a job in the private sector. Bevens said employees and their supervisors notified city manager Norton Bonaparte of all messages they sent to council members on the matter.

Bevens said Bonaparte doesn't have a problem with employees who are at work expressing their opinions on matters of city business to council members. Bonaparte sees that as being no different than a city employee responding to a council member's request for information on a matter of city business, which isn't uncommon, Bevens said.

Bonaparte, who doesn't usually take sides on political issues, spoke publicly in favor of the ERP purchase at Tuesday's council meeting.

After the council overrode Bunten's veto that evening, Bonaparte sent its members a message thanking them on behalf of city workers.

"As noted in the e-mails you received from employees, we see the implementation of the Lawson ERP system as critical in our efforts to make the city government more effective and more efficient," Bonaparte wrote.

Tim Hrenchir can be reached at (785) 295-1184 or tim.hrenchir@cjonline.com.

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Reader Comments
Posted by: kansasman101 at Apr 17, 2008 at 03:31:22 AM
So, city employees are the ones who "overrode" the veto?

I would venture to say there are many, many thousands more city residents who did not support this endeavor.

Back door politics again by the council and Bonaparte.

Posted by: mlurp at Apr 17, 2008 at 06:25:51 AM
City spokesman David Bevens and he admits his suggestion to the city employees to e-mail the council And I thought yesterday Mr Plishener, (sorry if I mis-spelled it) took credit also, would have made it a done deal. Sure they gave up one, but to many comments, he, he. But they have to decide enough.
have the others city tax rise and the water rates climb. while everything we use dialy increases. More duty than our elected state reps do! Waht our we paying for? These people to charge us more on a lot of stuff to make up for the costs of this war which costs each state Federal $. Kansas is going to lose 40.6 million. Sure hope they don't want the city to make that up! Even all of Kansas That is about what 2 million a person in Kansas. That makes the Fair Tax seem right.But! Is it Fair really?
Nothing but questions and bad news.