Thursday, March 28, 2024

County pays unexpected $220,750 software bill

Posted

The Commissioners Court voted 4-1 Tuesday to pay an unexpected invoice from Tyler Technologies in the amount of $220,750 that resulted from County Clerk Katie Lang and Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Dub Gillum halting the conversion of their offices to Tyler Odyssey software.

County Auditor Becky Kidd said that she will take the money out of “General Fund contract services.”

She stated, “That will wipe that budget out.”

The court, which has the authority to make technology decisions for the county, approved Tyler Odyssey for certain county offices. Other county offices are also undergoing Tyler conversions, but for different software.

Lang and Gillum said that the process of switching from NetData, which serves them well, to Tyler Odyssey has been extremely difficult and problematic for their offices.

At the end of a lengthy, contentious meeting last week, the pair agreed to work with the county in hopes of reducing the added costs caused by their previous decision to halt the conversion. There was hope that Gillum’s office might be able to catch up in time to go live with other JP offices on or around Dec. 5.

However, at Tuesday’s regular Commissioners Court meeting, the county judge and commissioners decided to pay the bill after becoming convinced that doing so was unavoidable.

That decision was made after IT Director Drew Wiederkehr posed additional questions to Tyler representatives after the court’s Nov. 1 special meeting called to discuss the invoice.

According to Greg Wallace, project manager for Tyler Technologies, the company has met its contractual obligations with the county and cannot bring Lang and Gillum’s offices up to speed in the conversion process without a contract addendum, an additional 1,250 hours of work and a second Tyler Odyssey phase that will include only those offices.

Gillum and Lang were present at the Commissioners Court meeting and spoke from the podium. The discussion lasted 39 minutes.

Gillum said that he and Lang had “re-engaged” with Tyler.

He said that the go-live date of Dec. 5 will probably be pushed back a week or two and that he believed his office could likely catch up.

Gillum questioned the charges and said that the contract includes a “dispute resolution clause.” He expressed the opinion that the county needed to “re-negotiate.”

During most of the discussion, exchanges were calm and low-key. However, toward the end, terse words were again exchanged.

Lang again stated that she had been given no help despite having asked for it repeatedly.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Jack Wilson said that she had been offered assistance multiple times.

Kidd read email exchanges that occurred between her and Lang after the Nov. 1 meeting in which they scheduled a meeting about the conversion.

“I don’t know what more I can do,” Kidd stated.

At one point, while expressing that he was “upset” on behalf of the county’s taxpayers, County Judge Ron Massingill accused Gillum of smirking.

That comment sparked an angry retort from Gillum and an accusation of bullying.

Massingill continued his remarks, saying that money is needed for law enforcement officers, a reference to the court’s struggle to find money in the budget to fund pay increases that might keep deputies from taking higher-paying jobs in other counties.

He added that he was worried that if the county didn’t pay the $220,750 bill, even higher charges might result if other offices converting to Tyler software programs ended up being delayed in their own go-live date.

That comment prompted Lang to return to the podium.

“What concerns me is your blame game,” she said. “You keep blaming me and Dub. We ran into problems. I reached out for help. I had no communication from you, Judge.”

The motion to approve the contract addendum and to pay the invoice was made by Precinct 2 Commissioner Ron Cotton and seconded by Wilson. It passed with the votes of Massingill and Precinct 1 Commissioner Kevin Andrews.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle voted nay.