Explanation
BACKGROUND: This ordinance NO. 0848-2019 authorizes expenditures of $3,000,000 for the implementation and support of a modern payroll and personnel system. This legislation authorizes the City Auditor to enter into contract with Ceridian HCM, Inc, Presagia Corp, HSO North America, Navigator, and Knowledge Services.
The City of Columbus payroll and personnel system was originally implemented in the 1980s and has been subsequently updated and programmed by the Department of Technology. The existing legacy system has been able to be updated and expanded internally to be reprogrammed for Y2K, changes in bargaining unit agreements, and overcome some initial design limitations for space; however, it has not kept up with the technical advances in areas such as providing a modern user interface, supporting end user inquiry and ad-hoc reporting, providing employee and manager self-service capabilities, and having the ability to import Time & Attendance collected by various systems across the City, which requires manual entry to be performed by city staff every pay period. Additionally, the Department of Technology has informed the City Auditor that the platform maintenance and support for the existing system has been contracted to December 31, 2020.
The Auditor’s Office, in conjunction with the Civil Service Commission, conducted an RFSQ process in accordance with Section 329.27 of Columbus City Code for a new Payroll & Personnel System and related professional services necessary to implement the proposed system.
Eleven (11) responses were received with fourteen (14) options presented to the City. The initial responses were evaluated using (1) the competence of the Offeror to perform the required service; (2) the ability of the Offeror to perform the required service competently and expeditiously; (3) past performance of the Offeror as reflected by the evaluations of the city agency, other city agencies and other previous clients of the Offeror; and (4) functionality of proposed solution.
Five (5) proposals were eventually submitted as two of the offerors chose to partner in the next stage. Technical Proposals were received and Offerors were ranked based upon the quality and feasibility of their proposals. Ratings were based upon the project plan, the functionality and benefits of the proposed system, satisfaction of the technical requirements, resource requirements, options for licensing, ongoing support, payment plans, and estimated total cost of ownership.
After reviewing the proposals, three (3) offerors were selected to provide scripted on-site demonstrations for two (2) days each. After the demonstrations were concluded, Ceridian HCM’s Dayforce Software as a Service (SaaS) product was recommended by the Evaluation Committee as the highest rated offeror to replace the City’s aged legacy system.
Implementing Ceridian’s Dayforce application will allow the City of Columbus as an enterprise to achieve many of the following objectives:
• Timely and accurate processing of transactions that serve as the definitive system of record for payroll, benefits, leave balances, personnel and position management activities by the City in an effective and efficient manner that supports all legal and professional requirements.
• Apply various rules for processing personnel transaction actions, time records and calculating payroll based on collective bargaining contract requirements (shift differentials as percentage of hours worked or unworked, acting pay, attendance bonus, fitness bonus, uniform allowance, etc.).
• Utilize a modernized user interface through browser independent, web portal access
• Improve analytics and access to information for non-technical users. Ability to prepare and execute standard reports, ad-hoc reports, secure report routing and delivery, and visualize data.
• Reduce time spent manually compiling, entering, and reconciling time and attendance data
• Provide a robust employee and manager self-servicing tool, including access to employee records, personnel transactions, employee payroll details, time & attendance related tracking and reporting, and employee benefit elections.
• Experience optimal performance on an updated and modern platform supporting high availability and stout disaster recovery.
• Exercise process flow enhancements through the utilization of electronic workflow. Continue and enhance levels of internal controls for controlling risk, providing auditability, maintaining compliance, and achieving reliability.
• Obtain process efficiency by providing ability for users to process mass transactions, upload data files and create and access required outbound data files.
Ceridian’s product and SaaS pricing also includes a workforce management module that may offer the ability to schedule employees and capture time and attendance in a single system. This would allow the continuous calculation of pay and decrease the necessity of manual data entry or maintaining duplicative systems across the City.
Ceridian has also offered an integrated third party Software as a Service (SaaS) partner, Presagia Corp, for documenting, communicating, and automating special FMLA and other leave laws above and beyond the time collection and usage tracking offered within its system. The contract with Presagia will likely be entered into after the initial solution blueprint and user acceptance testing phases of the Ceridan Dayforce when the values to be integrated between systems will be better known and user security is established to allow for configuring single sign on between the two systems. Staggering the implementation into phases will allow the City to save money on subscription fees and more efficiently use project resources. This legislation will authorize the City Auditor to contract separately with Presagia Corp when the project reaches the proper phase.
In order to ensure adequate resources and complete the project, the City Auditor requires the ability to contract with additional vendors to provide resources for staff augmentation. This ordinance would authorize the City Auditor to contract with the following current State term schedule holders as needed:
• State of Ohio's IT Staff Augmentation Contract (state term schedule) with Knowledge Services or the current contract provider for any additional IT staff needed to assist in the deployment of the Payroll & Personnel system.
• State of Ohio STS-033, schedule 534431, with Navigator Management Partners for organizational change and project management resources.
• HSO North America to configure and implement an interface between Microsoft Dynamics and Dayforce. HSO originally submitted a proposal separately but eventually partnered with Ceridian for this portion of the project. The City Auditor would like to issue this portion of the work as a separate contract to coincide with the Dynamics 365 upgrade project that is currently in RFP phase and reviewing proposals.
Finally, this ordinance contains funding for contingencies that may arise in the project and allows the project manager to authorize change orders in the scope of work as needed to see the project to a successful conclusion.
Title
To authorize the City Auditor to enter into contracts with Ceridian HCM Dayforce, Presagia, HSO North America, Navigator, Knowledge Services, and/or such additional consultant vendors as may be necessary, for a modern payroll and personnel system; to provide funding for the implementation, support, hosting, and maintenance of Dayforce Payroll and Personnel system; to authorize the expenditure of up to $3,000,000.00 from the Auditor's Bond Fund for a total expenditure of $3,000,000.00; and to declare an emergency ($3,000,000.00)
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WHEREAS, the City Auditor, the Department of Technology, and the Civil Service Commission have determined that the City's existing payroll and personnel system software, originally purchased in 1982, is no longer adequate and has reached the end of its product life; and
WHEREAS, the City Auditor and the Civil Service Commission Executive Director and their staffs have conducted a search for and study of replacement options;
WHEREAS, the City of Columbus solicited Requests for Statements of Qualifications (RFSQ) pursuant to Columbus City Code 329 for Professional Services for the purchase and implementation of a Payroll & Personnel System. The RFSQ was advertised in the City Bulletin, published to the web on Vendor Services, and all registered vendors for the related commodities were notified via email or fax; and the evaluation committee reviewed the qualifications, proposals, and demonstrations of the offeror and recommended Ceridian HCM, Inc’s Dayforce product as the highest rated solution;
WHEREAS, the selection of Cerdian HCM Dayforce solution meets the goals of best overall fit for the City in terms of application functionality, ease of use, technological direction, cost, resources required to implement and maintain, and compatibility with the software implementer; and
WHEREAS, additional functionality is necessary for the FMLA and other special leave compliance, additional solution from Presagia Corp will be integrated with to the payroll and personnel system selected to address those needs; and
WHEREAS, additional resources and support services are necessary to complete the project; and
WHEREAS, an emergency exists in the usual daily operations of the City Auditor's Office in that it is immediately necessary to authorize the City Auditor to enter into contracts with Cerdian HCM, Inc, and others for the implementation, time capture equipment and professional services related to the deployment of Dayforce and related systems to replace the City's current payroll & personnel system, thereby preserving the public health, peace, safety, and welfare; now, therefore
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS:
SECTION 1. That the City Auditor be and is hereby authorized to enter into contracts with Ceridian HCM, Inc. and Presagia Inc. for software as a service, devices, and professional services necessary for the implementation of their respective systems to replace the City’s existing legacy enterprise wide payroll and personnel system.
SECTION 2. That, for the same purposes as set forth in Section 1 of this ordinance, the City Auditor is hereby authorized to enter into contracts with Knowledge Services, Navigator Management Partners LLC, HSO North America and/or such additional consultant vendors as may be necessary and available through State Term contracts per the terms and conditions of such State Term contracts. This Council recognizes that this ordinance does not identify all the contractor(s) to whom all of the contract(s) will be awarded and understands that its passage will give the City Auditor the discretion and final decision in determination of the contract(s) that are in the best interests of the City and necessary for the successful implementation of this financial management system. For the purposes of this ordinance, this Council deems it in the best interests of the City to delegate this contracting decision to the City Auditor and to waive the competitive bidding requirements of the Columbus City Code.
SECTION 3. That the sum of $3,000,000.00 is hereby available and authorized for expenditure from fund 7783 Auditor Bond Fund for Network Systems - Payroll Dept./Div. No. 22-01 , Object Class 06, Main account 66530, Project P220003 -100000.
SECTION 4. That the funds necessary to carry out the purpose of this ordinance are hereby deemed appropriated and authorized for expenditure, and the City Auditor shall establish such accounting codes as necessary.
SECTION 5. That the City Auditor is hereby authorized to transfer the unencumbered balance in a project account to the unallocated balance account within the same fund when said project has been completed and the monies are no longer required for said project.
SECTION 6. That the City Auditor is authorized to make any accounting changes to revise the funding contract or contract associated with the expenditure of the funds transferred in Section 3.
SECTION 7. That for reasons stated in the preamble hereto, which is hereby made a part hereof, this ordinance is hereby declared to be an emergency measure and shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage and approval by the Mayor, or ten days after passage if the Mayor neither approves nor vetoes the same.