December 4, 2024 - The Shelby County Commissioners moved forward with a new cloud based financial software system during their meeting held November 20, 2024.
Clint Porterfield, County Auditor, then enlightened the commissioners on a written proposal from Financial Intelligence for new cloud based financial system software.
“We've had a good run for 25 years. Shelby County has used Hill Country software financial system going on 25 years. In 2018, local government solutions, LGS (Local Government Solutions) purchased all of the software rights and clientele of Hill Country Software,” said Porterfield. “In 2019, myself, the assistant treasurer, the treasurer and the assistant operator went to College Station for a meeting concerning the acquisition and the new software system that was forthcoming and there were a lot of questions at that time about this company and their software system that had purchased your country.”
Porterfield continued explaining that during the past six years, LGS has taken their software system called Financial Intelligence (FI), and they've added to it some of the nice features of Hill Country that the county has grown accustomed to and, through a blending of the two programs, have created a financial system that caters to small counties, and small to mid-sized counties.
“We were notified in October the first when we started our new year that LGS Financial Intelligence is now trying to convert the rest of the counties that they haven't converted in the last six years. We are at the end of the list. We've kind of held out and hoping we'd all get debugged before it got to us,” said Porterfield.
He explained that the intent of LGS is to have Shelby County systems converted over sometime in the summer of 2025. Porterfield said the county has been fortunate in that it has paid $4,000 a year to Hill Country for their software for 25 years. The new proposal is for $2,675 a month at a total cost of $32,000 a year.
I'm actually very pleased that's all it is, $32,000 a year. I know that we have some friends and counties around us who have gone with other software systems that cost six figures. But I will tell you that I am very confident with the FI program, even though I haven't seen the technical workings of it. I have looked at some of their reporting. I talked to Trinity County just this week. Trinity County just converted within the last three months,” said Porterfield.
Commissioner Bellmyer moved to follow the request by the auditor to move forward with the software and Commissioner Smith seconded the motion. It carried
Porterfield addressed the commissioners to talk with them about an annual expense they were presented with in their expenses regarding the 10th Administrative Judicial Region.
"We are in a judicial region with 32 other counties, and in that judicial region there are judges and those judges prepare a budget and the 32 counties share the budget of the 10th Judicial District for their actions in court and their administrative cause,” said Porterfield. “So Shelby County pays, of that $165,000 budget, Shelby County pays about 1.6% to $2,700 and that's been the same price for many years.”
A motion to pay the weekly expenses was made by Commissioner Tom Bellmyer and was seconded by Commissioner Stevie Smith.
The commissioners considered the payroll presented to them and then Commissioner Smith moved to pay the payroll, which was seconded by Commissioner Bellmyer.
A sponsorship of the Deep East Texas Legislative Reception in Austin in January was considered by the commissioners, and Commissioner Roscoe McSwain stated that normally $500 is donated and he recalled attending the event two years previous to the meeting.
“I guess it's just a partial sponsorship because I was looking at the sponsorship levels and that's below the levels. But yet, according to Lonnie, that typically what we always contribute is the $500,” said Bellmyer.
McSwain continued, “That says in the documentation here, if you have highlighted $500 here, we will receive all the benefits offered to our gold level sponsors.”
Commissioner Bellmyer moved to continue sponsorship of DETCOG at that legislative session, and a second was heard by Commissioner Smith. The motion carried.
Taylor Fanguy, Constable Precinct 4, addressed the commissioners about purchasing a radar for the Precinct 4 patrol vehicle. Constable Fanguy stated the radar he has ceased to function after being moved to his new unit and the company that manufactured it no longer provides support for the unit.
The radar Constable Fanguy was seeking to purchase was a newer version of the same model radar.
Commissioner Bellmyer was surprised with the unit being over 10 years old that it still functioned.
Porterfield recommended paying for the new unit out of Constable Fanguy’s budget and then any future adjustment could be made via a line-item transfer at the end of the budget year.
Commissioner Bellmyer made a motion to move forward with the purchase of the radar and charge it to the constable budget as-is, Commissioner Smith seconded the motion and it carried.
During Commissioner’s Court Reports portion of the meeting, Commissioner Bellmyer commented that Deborah Chadwick, Chamber of Commerce President, brought Leadership Class members to court for the meeting an he thanked them for their presence.
Commissioner McSwain brought up the driveway into the Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 office and preparations for work to be done.
“As the court’s aware, we've been discussing for six months to a year now. Fixing the driveway down at the Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 office. We talked about doing it in-house and the ball kind of got pushed in my corner lately,” said McSwain. “I come up with the idea last week to seek an estimate of what it would cost to have an outside contractor come in.”
Commissioner McSwain said they reached out to Cornerstone Construction and received an estimate of $10,645 from them.
With the project being a repair and just over $10,000 he said they would move forward with the project and pay for it out of Courthouse Repairs.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:29am.
Agenda items approved during the meeting include: 1. Weekly expenses. 2. Payroll. 3. Sponsor the Deep East Texas Legislative Reception in Austin in January. 4. Financial Intelligence written proposal for new cloud based financial system software. 5. Request from Precinct 4 Constable Taylor Fanguy to purchase a Radar for the Precinct patrol vehicle. 6. Adjourn.
