Fort Smith Board keeps hire-fire authority with city boss, reviews $4.6 million IT plan

Implementation of the Enterprise Resource Plan (ERP) took center stage at Tuesday’s (Feb. 23) study session of the Fort Smith Board of Directors as Russell Gibson, head of the city’s Information Technology department, gave an update on the new phase of the $4.66 million project that will start in 2016.

Also, the Board decided by straw poll not to pursue a revisit of the City Administrator’s hire-and-fire authority, and directed Acting City Administrator Jeff Dingman to no longer place items on the consent agenda related to the $480 million consent decree leveled on the city for violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The items will instead be discussed and voted on separately.

The meeting began with a look at the year ahead for the ERP. The most significant part of the update will be replacing the city’s existing financial system as IT works to streamline software systems across most of the city’s 23 departments.

According to the city’s Strategic Technology Plan, requests for proposal will be sent out this year, followed by vendor selection, and the beginning of implementation with a go-live date of 2018. ArcBest currently handles the city’s system and will continue to run parallel to the new internal system for a period of about two years, Gibson said, adding that the company was “100 percent behind the city’s desire” for an internal system.

The budget impact will include $1.8 million in one-time software costs, $360,000 in yearly maintenance, and $2.5 million in one-time professional fees for a total estimated cost of $4.66 million, to be amortized over a 10-year period.

Overall, City Directors were pleased with the report, though Director Keith Lau suggested that utilities and police, which run their IT independent of the city’s Information Technology department, “fall under purview” of Gibson’s department.

“Can you at least do a flyby,” Lau asked in reference to new IT-related purchases from those two departments, “and see maybe if we can do it better, or do it cheaper?”

Director Kevin Settle agreed that there “needs to be some oversight from you and your department,” in comments to Gibson. Gibson noted that with police there are “privacy concerns and things like that,” but he would be open to sitting down with the other two departments to see how they could work together.

HIRE-AND-FIRE
Also Tuesday, the Board voted 4-2 (Mike Lorenz was absent) to keep hire-and-fire power with the city administrator. Director André Good, who acknowledged previously voting to grant that right to former City Administrator Ray Gosack, asked to revisit the issue because he did not think it was something that should be automatically granted to one person without oversight and experience.

“The reason I voted to allow the City Administrator to have the power that he does at this time came from knowing Ray and knowing his institutional knowledge of the organization, his relationships with staff and personnel,” Good said.

He continued: “And frankly, I think that power has to be given by the Board once it gets earned. It has to be proven that this person is trustworthy. The reason I voted before is because I knew how committed Ray was to serving the Board and working with staff. It wasn’t always pretty. I know he didn’t always get done some of the things that some of the Board members wanted to get done … but I did see him working in that capacity.”

Settle said he had been against granting that authority since the Board did so in 2013.

“My position hasn’t changed since day one,” Settle said. “I’ve always thought the Board should have the authority that had been granted to us for 40 years.”

Lau believed there was too much “technical expertise to hire and fire” department heads, and the final decision should rest with the city administrator, so directors would not be in a position where they could be “politicked” to override an Administrator’s decision. Directors George Catsavis, Don Hutchings, and Tracy Pennartz were in agreement that taking that power back from the City Administrator could set a precedent that undermined his authority.

Finally, at the suggestion of Settle, the Board decided to single out proposals related to the $480 million consent decree for violations of the Clean Water Act as an act of “transparency and accountability” to the citizens of Fort Smith. Pennartz and Lau agreed, with none dissenting.