Going with the flow: Water use on the rise
By JASMIN PERSCH Special to the Daily Press
(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures which appear on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past.) CITY HALL — City council is expected to spend $432,146 tonight to bring its utility bill software into the 21st century.
The numerous bills city officials collect from Santa Monica residents and businesses — water, sewage, trash, fire inspections — are organized with technology stemming from the 1980s.
The software allows city staff to track utility bills and money collected by residents and businesses on top of providing people with billing information.
City officials said they will install new software that could meet the growing demands of people who want billing made easy.
Many residents and businesses today expect to view and pay their bills online, receive them by e-mail or get a single bill for multiple properties, city staff said.
With the requirements of sewer discharge and water consumption becoming more demanding, the new billing software will support the more detailed records and reports needed, city officials said.
Not only does the old software not meet the growing demands of city staff and residents, the computer that runs the old billing system is no longer supported by the manufacturer.
City officials plan to hire Harris Computer Systems to upgrade the billing system that will take between six and nine months to complete.
The Canada-based company is getting paid for the software and hardware it will provide on top of installing the technology and training people to use it.
Included in the contract is a year of software and hardware maintenance that’s costing city officials $27,245.
If city staff choose to call on the company in the next five years for software maintenance, they will pay the same amount per year.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 8, 2005. Read the original PDF.