Oracle NetSuite for Government will provide the accounting platform at a total cost of $555,500, and UKG will provide the human resources and payroll software for a total cost of $34,100. The city will retain 10% of both contracts until the project is complete.
BerryDunn, the consulting firm hired last year to help with the selection process, will provide oversight and advisory services during implementation of the new software at a cost of $462,000.
The city budgeted $625,000 in 2025 and another $625,000 in 2026 in the capital improvement program to pay for the new software and implementation.
BerryDunn assessed the city's current system, determined what the city wanted and sought proposals to meet those needs, said Nick Rhinehart, Superior's finance director. He said a team of six finance, payroll, human resources and information technology staff members then evaluated the 10 proposals the city received. They selected three vendors to provide demonstrations over three days.
"The vendors had to prove that our processes that we defined within the earlier stages actually fit within that software," Rhinehart said.
The selection process took about a year, according to Rhinehart, and IT contracting experts then conducted a legal review of proposed contracts to protect the city's interests.
Councilor Brent Fennessey questioned the need to spend nearly as much for a consultant to implement the new software as the city would spend on the software.
"What we're trying to protect ourselves with BerryDunn is what we don't know," Rhinehart said.
Mayor Jim Paine compared BerryDunn's role to hiring a construction manager to oversee a building project.
"Implementing software to this scale is significantly more complex than a major construction project, and we would hire a construction manager for any major project," he said.
Implementation is expected to take about one year for the accounting system and nine months for the human resources and payroll systems and will require training and migrating the city's data from the current system to the new one, Rhinehart said.
"I'm trying to set it up in a way where all the employees are there, they're ready to go," Rhinehart said. "We've given this the best opportunity we could."
Fennessey said his concern was that the city didn't put the consulting contract out to bid.
However, BerryDunn was hired last year through a competitive bidding process when the city was looking for a consultant to guide the process, and implementation was a requested aspect of those proposals.
Councilor Jack Sweeney said this is probably one of the biggest projects the city will undertake and will require time city staff doesn't have to accomplish the project.
"I'm a big believer in hiring people who are experts on the outside ... we need the experts to guide us," Sweeney said.
The mayor split the question, and councilors voted unanimously to approve Oracle and UKG for the city's new software. Councilors split 9-1, with Fennessey voting in opposition, to approve the contract for BerryDunn.
"You said that we want to keep the people who are most familiar with the city," Fennessey said to Rhinehart. "I would rather have us hire the people who are most familiar with the software, and that might be BerryDunn, but that might be somebody else, and we're not going to know that unless we put this out to bid to know we're getting a fair shake on this."
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