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Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 9:30 AM BOARD OF SUPERVISORS Maricopa County, Arizona (and the Boards of Directors of the Flood Control District, Library District, Stadium District, Improvement Districts, Housing Authority of Maricopa County and/or Board of Deposit) "The mission of Maricopa County is to provide regional leadership and fiscally responsible, necessary public services to its residents so they can enjoy living in healthy and safe communities” Board Members Bill Gates, Chairman, District 3 Clint Hickman, Vice Chairman, District 4 Jack Sellers, District 1 Steve Chucri, District 2 Steve Gallardo, District 5 County Manager Joy Rich Clerk of the Board Fran McCarroll Meeting Location Supervisors' Conference Room 301 W. Jefferson, 10th Floor Phoenix, AZ 85003 BOARD OF SUPERVISORS The Board of Supervisors of Maricopa County, Phoenix, Arizona, convened in Informal Session at 9:30 AM on Monday, December 09, 2019, in the Supervisors' Conference Room, 301 W. Jefferson, 10th Floor, Phoenix, AZ 85003, with the following members present: Bill Gates, Chairman, District 3; Clint Hickman, Vice Chairman, District 4; Jack Sellers, District 1; Steve Chucri, District 2; Steve Gallardo, District 5 (entered late). Also present: Fran McCarroll, Clerk of the Board; Kelly Gardiner, Minutes Coordinator; Joy Rich, County Manager; and Andrea Cummings, Legal Counsel. PRESENTATION AND ACTION Assessor 1. ASSESSOR'S OFFICE MARS PROJECT UPDATE PRESENTATION Assessor's Office MARS Project update presentation including Project Change Request #4. (C-12- 20-003-P-00) Chairman Gates introduced Bill Wiley, Acting Administrator, Maricopa County Assessor’s Office and Tim Boncoskey, Chief Deputy Assessor. Mr. Wiley gave an opening statement and overview of the Maricopa Assessment Replacement System (MARS) project. He noted his short time frame within the Assessor’s Office and how he has spent his time getting acquainted with the priorities of the Assessor’s Office. He said the current system, Computer Aided Mass Appraisal (CAMA) is outdated. Mr. Wiley used the analogy of driving an older car and needing to replace it because the parts to repair it are not available or there are not qualified people to work on it. The MARS project has been underway for five years and is approximately 70% complete. He stated that the amount of work the project requires has changed since its inception in 2013. The targeted date to “Go Live” has been July 2020. Mr. Wiley announced the purpose of the meeting was to request an extension for the roll-out date of the new MARS software to February 2021. Mr. Wiley had been in the Assessor’s Office for just three days. He stated the following as the Assessor’s Office priorities: 1. The MARS project. 2. Resiliency, recognizing there are several people in the office ready to retire and making sure there are ready-trained replacements. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 2 of 14 3. Meeting the statutory mandates for the Assessor’s Office. Chairman Gates asked Tim Boncoskey, Chief Deputy Assessor, to present the project update. Also present: Raj Sandhu, Project Manager with Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) Canada, the consulting firm contracted to develop the MARS software with Maricopa County; Eric Bails, Chief Technology Officer, Office of the Assessor; and Jeff Tompkins, Project Consultant. Mr. Boncoskey reviewed the project with a slide presentation. Mr. Boncoskey gave an overview of the agenda. Mr. Boncoskey spoke of the pros and cons of the CAMA program vs MARS. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 3 of 14 Mr. Boncoskey explained the MARS product is a single platform which integrates all the necessary functions of Assessor responsibilities. The multifaceted program will increase efficiency with intuitive map interfaces, support the Geographic Information System (GIS) platform, and reduce errors in data input. The project resides “in the cloud” which enables mobile operations, and will keep up with the growth of Maricopa County for the next 20 years. A short video compared the current system with the MARS system. Mr. Boncoskey explained that the current process requires the use of three separate applications to update or revalue a parcel. A site visit is required and then after entering new data the process would still require separate calculations for the Limited Property Value (LPV). The MARS system allows the new data to be entered at the time of the site visit, and the program automatically finalizes the value calculations. Mr. Boncoskey reviewed the history of the MARS Project. Since 2016, the Assessor’s Office came to the Board three different times to give budget and status updates, the most recent in the fall of 2017. In reviewing the history of the project Mr. Boncoskey explained the contract was first awarded Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 4 of 14 to Vision Government Solutions, Inc. However, it became apparent they could not complete the project. The “soft work” was given to Esri Canada when the project was moved from Vision to Esri. Mr. Boncoskey reviewed the following slide to explain the transition from attempting to modify an “off the shelf” product (Vision’s approach) to creating a custom product, (Esri’s approach). Mr. Boncoskey reviewed the positive aspects for Esri Canada to develop the MARS system for Maricopa County. The Esri Canada contract employs a collaborative nature in developing the product. With regular check-ins (releases) between the County and Esri Canada, the information exchange and testing of the product has helped to keep the project on track. Mr. Boncoskey reviewed the three contract amendments thus far and the need for the fourth amendment noted as Project Change Request 04 (PCR 04). He stated the Go-Live date of July 2020 was not in a written contract between Esri Canada and Maricopa County but was simply developed as a “projected target date.” This proposed amendment would reflect the new timeline for a Go-Live commitment of February 2021. The need to consider the Assessor’s calendar of statutory duties in the timing of release of the product played a role. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 5 of 14 He spoke of the need to have the entire Assessors staff trained on the new system and be able to “turn off” the old system and “turn on” the new MARS system. Chairman Gates asked when the original rollout of July 2020 was established. Mr. Boncoskey said that July 2020 was the proposed target date from the initial contract in 2016. Supervisor Hickman asked about the memorialization in January 2019 and who was involved in that decision. Mr. Bail said the decision involved Esri Canada and the Executive Steering Committee. The idea of a July 2020 Go-Live with a phase-in implementation was discussed at that time. Mr. Boncoskey said that as the releases came along in April, July and September 2019, the team recognized that they were not progressing as quickly as anticipated. Mr. Boncoskey reviewed the timeline of progress. After the August release, the progress toward Go-Live date had not been realized. The level of work to be done was greater than anticipated. At that point, it became necessary to ask for more money or more time. The decision was to come to the Board and request an extension to February 2021 for completion. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 6 of 14 Mr. Boncoskey stated the blue horizontal line in the above slide represented the goal to be reached in order for the Assessor’s office to Go-Live on schedule. As the chart shows and Mr. Boncoskey confirmed, Release 10 (for August) and Release 11 (for September) had not shown the progress that was anticipated. He said the quality was very good but it lacked quantity. Mr. Tompkins was scheduled to meet with the Assessor on October 9, 2019 to share this update. The Release Quality was quickly reviewed by Mr. Boncoskey stating that on the chart, the orange bars represent the Esri releases compared to the blue bars which is the threshold, based on the scope of the release. The County stayed well below the threshold score for quality. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 7 of 14 Chairman Gates asked Mr. Boncoskey to explain the Release Deliveries. Mr. Boncoskey said the notes indicate the story points were not being hit or delivered and it became clear they could not Go Live as scheduled. Mr. Tompkins said the “velocity of the build” simply was not enough to get the project completed on schedule. They began to discuss the possibility of a minimum Go-Live with subsequent releases to follow. It was not until August 2019 when enough information was obtained to determine that the strategy would not be successful. Chairman Gates asked if Paul Petersen was involved in the discussions. Mr. Tompkins said that Mr. Petersen was involved and they were all still operating under the July 2020 Go-Live date until October 2019. Chairman Gates asked Ed Winfield, Director, Enterprise Technology what he and the Executive Steering Committee knew about the delay in completion. Mr. Winfield said he received his information from the Executive Steering Committee. He said his understanding was they were pushing toward the July 2020 date with an implementation period to follow. Mr. Winfield stated the steering committee was working on the premise there would be a minimum Go-Live release as scheduled. The steering committee did not know about the potential delay in October. They learned about the need for a delay on November 4, 2019. The new release date was to be February 2021. Chairman Gates asked Mr. Boncoskey his response to this information. Mr. Boncoskey said he spoke to the Esri Canada principals and they were cooperative and willing to add more staff for Mr. Sandhu to get the project on schedule. In September 2019 when it was clear they could not meet the Go-Live date, the Assessor’s team traveled to Niagara Falls, Canada to meet with Esri Canada. He said the Assessor also went to Toronto, Canada to meet with the owner of Esri Canada to see what else could be done to meet the July 2020 Go-Live date. Mr. Sandhu said that at the end of 2018, there was a recommitment to getting it done. More resources were obtained from Esri Canada. The need for quality was imperative, and Esri Canada did not want to compromise quality to get it done sooner. As a result, the production Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 8 of 14 quantity was less than what was needed. Supervisor Chucri asked if the delay would be an additional cost to Maricopa County. Mr. Boncoskey said there would be no additional cost to the contract with Esri Canada. In fact, there will be a savings of $76,000 over the 20 years. Mr. Boncoskey presented the MARS Estimated Operating Costs. He said there would be an additional cost related to continuing with Oracle CAMA system of $202,000 for the next six months. In addition to that cost, there is a Project Management fee that will continue over the next six months of $709,871. He noted project contingencies were put in place to cover situations like this. Supervisor Chucri concluded the delay to February 2021 would indeed cost the County more money, approximately $1 million which will be in contingency. The total contingency for the project is $2 million and this delay is still costing money. Supervisor Chucri said the County had an agreement with Esri Canada. If they did not perform and it is costing the County more Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 9 of 14 money, somebody should be held accountable. Mr. Sandhu acknowledged Supervisor Chucri’s statements and reiterated his commitment to the project. He said since he started, the scope or effort on this project has increased 55%. The scope has changed due to the nature of building custom software. Mr. Sandhu stated the focus in the past months has clarified what needs to be done to meet the proposed Go-Live date of February 2021. The quality would remain high and they did not want to release an inferior product by moving too quickly. To make a quality product, it was necessary to make changes as they went along and that includes requesting more time. Supervisor Chucri asked if there were going to be any more unintended consequences. Mr. Sandhu said he was confident they could complete the project on time. There is a clear understanding of what needs to be done. He stated the last few months have given the team an improved sense of timing. Mr. Winfield stated if the February goal is not met, the next timeframe available would be July 2021. He confirmed the cost of the delay to be $709,871 for Project Team/Consulting and $202,000 to keep the CAMA system running for an additional six months. Supervisor Hickman asked about training in the new system. He noted the importance of training and concern if training is delayed. Mr. Bails said that with PCR 04, Esri Canada has pivoted and is focused on the development of the software to meet the new Go-Live date. He said when the project was initially started, the plan was for an off-the-shelf software that had training included in the package, When the shift to a more customized software was implemented, it was necessary for the County to develop the training using Esri Canada as the advisor. He stated it is necessary for the training to be able to be repeated over and over without vendor assistance. Supervisor Hickman asked if Esri Canada would be marketing the software as “off the shelf” to other municipalities and utilize the training that Maricopa County developed. Mr. Sandhu said there are two parts in software training. End User training which is specific to the processes of Maricopa County and System Administrator User training which is specifically developed for the company. Both are specific to Maricopa County and are not likely to be assets. Maricopa County will develop their own staff training and Esri Canada will not be able to then take that training information to the next company as part of their package. The System Administrator User training is part of the original contract and included in the current cost to Maricopa County. Supervisor Hickman expressed concern about losing “Brain Capital” after training. Mr. Sandhu reiterated the training is specific to Maricopa County and it is unlikely the “Brain Capital” will walk away. Mr. Winfield asked how confident Esri Canada was to deliver the product with the current cost projections. Mr. Sandhu responded he is confident and there are built in contingencies available. The current projections are realistic for the Go-Live date of February 2021. Mr. Bails said part of the PCR 04 is the reengineering of financing creating additional motivation to stay on track. He said “withheld retainage” is the term used and Esri Canada would be required to make specific progress in order to receive the retainer at the end of the Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 10 of 14 project which was not part of the previous agreement. Mr. Boncoskey stated that approving Project Change Request, PCR04, the contract Go-Live date of February 2021 and the second addendum item A-3 for a line item change of $306,938 from the Assessor’s General Fund Operating Budget to the Non Departmental General Fund Operating Contingency due to the elimination of maintenance software. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 11 of 14 Mr. Boncoskey stated this delay is very disappointing. He fully anticipated the project to Go- Live in the coming year. Supervisor Gallardo expressed his concern that the project went so far off track. When Mr. Winfield and the Executive Steering Committee are the eyes and ears for the Board and they are left in the dark as they stated, that is a problem. Supervisor Gallardo stated it is imperative that all the representatives are included in all aspects of the project. Supervisor Chucri asked why all parties were not kept informed. Mr. Boncoskey said that every quarter, there was a chiefs meeting where all briefings and files were available to everyone. Mr. Bails said that the timing to delay the Go-Live played a role in this instance. The recommendation to delay was not accepted by administration until mid-October while the Executive Steering Committee meeting was held on November 4, 2019. Chairman Gates asked when the suggestion was made to leadership to move the July 2020 Go-Live date. Mr. Bails said there was a “scenario analysis” in August 2019 that indicated there would possibly be a delay. However it was not until October 14, 2019 that the team spoke about moving the Go-Live date. Mr. Tompkins added that during summer 2019, there was great effort to find ways to keep the July 2020 date. The decision could not be made until they fully defined and understood velocity. Ultimately, they could not find a way to make it happen. The meeting with the Assessor in October was when the decision was made. Supervisor Sellers said he was puzzled why it took so many years to figure out there was a problem. He stated it would be helpful to have a central IT group that controls all of these types of projects. Supervisor Chucri asked Mr. Winfield if he felt like he was left in the dark. Mr. Winfield said that he and the Executive Steering Committee were focused on the completion date and the information to delay was not conveyed. He suggested meetings monthly would be helpful in creating more oversight and the ability to influence the process. A Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 12 of 14 quarterly report to leadership would be sufficient to keep updated. Supervisor Chucri acknowledged the circumstances in the Assessor’s office have changed. He said going forward it is important to keep Mr. Winfield and the Executive Steering Committee better informed. He stated he did not want to revisit this in February 2021 with more delay and additional cost. He said due to the changing dynamic of the Assessor’s Office, increased communication is imperative. Mr. Hickman asked if the subject of withholding payment to Esri Canada had been discussed with the principals of Esri Canada. Mr. Hickman said that if a delay beyond the PCR 04 occurred, there is potential to withhold payment. He wanted to ensure that all parties know the importance of getting the job done to avoid legal action in the future. Mr. Sandhu said that all levels of leadership, from the owners on down the line, are aware of the terms of the contract. He clarified that the scope of work is clearly defined and they are confident it will be completed by February 2021. Supervisor Hickman asked to re-review the MARS Estimated Operating Costs. Supervisor Hickman noted since the software would be Cloud based, is the amount indicated real costs. Mr. Boncoskey said the $1 million was part of the original contract. For the 2021 Budget, the Assessor’s Office will be asking for $463,000 for Maintenance and Cloud computing. Supervisor Hickman asked if the Cloud subscription service was reflecting an accurate cost. Mr. Boncoskey deferred to Mr. Winfield and Mr. Bails. Mr. Winfield said it was very important to manage the Cloud account. There is a tendency to just “put it in the Cloud”. If it is not monitored and managed, the costs can increase quickly. Mr. Bails said there are a variety of tools available to manage the cost. The subscription costs are based on Esri Canada’s experience in development. As the Go-Live date gets closer a more accurate number will be available. The first step is to get the production subscription running so they can gain experience before the Go-Live date. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 13 of 14 Chairman Gates stated his concern regarding the information about updates not being shared with all of the leadership team. He reiterated the importance of the project for the Assessor’s Office and was disappointed the Board was not made aware of the problem sooner. It was stated earlier that a Go-Live date was not written in a contract and yet a commitment was made. There were incentives being paid and it was not getting done on time. Joy Rich, County Manager stated the last incentive paid was January 2019. Mr. Winfield stated that the MARS project is a flagship product and will be an asset for Maricopa County. As the fourth largest county, it will put the county in the forefront of how property assessment is done. Supervisor Hickman asked for clarification on the following slide. Mr. Boncoskey explained the two items would be on the Board’s December 11, 2019 agenda for action with all specific costs detailed there. Supervisor Hickman stated there have been a number of changes in the Assessor’s Office. Some of the shifts in leadership during this process have contributed to the delays. Supervisor Hickman asked Mr. Boncoskey if he can feel confident that this will get done on time in February 2021. He said there are other County departments upgrading software and noted the commitment of the Board to help in project completion. Mr. Boncoskey said the changes that have been put into this contract are intended to give a higher level of assurance. He said he spoke to the Chairman on October 18, 2019 and the decision to delay was made October 21, 2019. The Principals of Esri Canada are the ones who have signed the current contract and commitment. He expressed disappointment in himself because it would not be ready by the original Go-Live date. Supervisor Chucri asked if a change in leadership would potentially create further delay. Mr. Boncoskey stated the Assessor’s Office is greater than one person and there are many knowledgeable people involved in the project. He is confident that the project will go to completion. Chairman Gates thanked everyone for their presence and their work on the project. Informal Meeting Minutes Monday, December 09, 2019 Page 14 of 14 2. EXECUTIVE SESSION Vote to convene in Executive Session to consider items on the Executive Agenda dated December 09, 2019, for Board of Supervisors and relevant Special Districts pursuant to statutory authority listed for each item. Motion to approve by Supervisor Hickman, seconded by Supervisor Chucri Ayes: Sellers, Chucri, Gates, Hickman, Gallardo MEETING ADJOURNED There being no further business to come before the Board, the meeting was adjourned. ___________________________ Bill Gates, Chairman of the Board ATTEST: _______________________________ Fran McCarroll, Clerk of the Board