GovTech Business Watch: Long Beach Signs $12 Million ERP Contract, AngelList Partner Names Gov Tech as Sector to Watch

Plus, a new vice president at mySidewalk.

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GovTech Business Watch is a weekly roundup of news in the government technology market.

Long Beach, Calif., has announced a new enterprise resource system, built with Tyler Technologies’ Munis, with costs amounting to more than $12 million across five years.

The system, which Mayor Robert Garcia described as the largest single technology project in Long Beach’s history, integrates operations across the city’s operations, according to a press release. It also replaces 17 software modules, including payroll, budgeting and cash processing. The price tag includes a purchasing cost of $8.4 million plus a five-year maintenance and support contract.

The city is calling the ERP system LB COAST. According to the statement, it will help the city connect data sets, speed up transaction postings from overnight batches to real time, eliminate paper timesheets and replace outdated systems that couldn’t integrate with newer technology.

“This new technology will help increase efficiency and effectiveness, improve controls, provide better information for decision-making and increase transparency,” Garcia said in the statement. “It also advances our open data policy.”

According to a bid document from the city, the mammoth project took 11,000 staff-hours from more than 200 employees. Staff members have been working to finalize the procurement since the latter half of 2014. Tyler won the bid against proposals from eight other vendors: Applied Software Technology Corp., CGI Technologies and Solutions, HCL America, Labyrinth Solutions, Quintel-Management Consulting, Sierra Cedar, SunGard Public Sector and Xerox Consultant Co.

Alex Pack, a partner on AngelList’s deals team, wrote in a recent blog post that government technology is the sector he’s most excited about in 2017.

Citing the massive spending power of federal, state and local government, Pack wrote that there is potential even in narrowly focused sectors of government. Indeed, the 2017 GovTech 100 list contains companies that do everything from managing local codes to providing customer engagement tools for police departments. It’s when those companies find new niches to fill, and expand toward platforms, that they begin to scale up and offer returns to investors.

Pack also wrote about the ability of startups to subvert the traditional government RFP process that can stretch tech projects into multi-year, million- or billion-dollar slogs. Oftentimes startups are more focused, working more quickly and iteratively than their more established counterparts.

Altogether, he has enthusiasm for the market. “2016 saw greater interest from a larger group of [venture capitalists], angels, and the top accelerators,” Pack wrote. “Govtech may soon be as big as FinTech or HealthTech.”

MySidewalk has hired Amy Bradshaw as its new vice president of finance.

Bradshaw, who comes to mySidewalk from the health and human services company Netsmart Technologies, will be responsible for budgeting, analyzing business opportunities and handling monthly company reporting, according to a press release.

She’s joining the company just a few months after its founding chief executive officer, Nick Bowden, stepped away from mySidewalk. Bowden founded the company, which works with cities on data and analytics, as MindMixer in 2010.

Bradshaw holds degrees in business administration, accounting and manufacturing engineering, and has held jobs in consulting and communications.

“The team here is pretty fast-paced, and Amy is a great fit for this sort of environment,” mySidewalk CEO Stephen Hardy said in the statement. “She’s already hit the ground running and will improve our ability to serve our customers.”

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Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.