City to spend $87,950 on new

City w i l l recoup expense with savings on yearly licensing fees

BY BRIAN WILSON NEWS EDITOR

The city of Medford will be making a switch in their financial operating systems to save money and make it easier for city hall staff to use.

At Monday’s city council committee of the whole meeting, aldermen gave preliminary approval to switch from Incode to Civic Systems to handle the city’s utility billing, accounts receivable, accounts payable and payroll systems. The cost of the switch will be $87,950 which will be spread over three payments with $29,317 due right away, $29,317 due in January 2023 and $29,316 due in January 2024. After the conversion process, the city would pay an annual service fee to Civic of $13,250.

According to Lemke, currently the City uses Incode through Tyler Technologies for their operational system for those services and pays an annual fee of $38,000. City coordinator Joe Harris said the switch will result in an ongoing yearly savings of more than $20,000 per year after the conversion expense is paid off, but even with the conversion will be cheaper.

According to Lemke, with the recent change in staff the last few years it has been becoming difficult to complete the required work of the City, due to the lack of experienced knowledge on how to use Incode properly.

She said training for Incode is difficult to come by and doesn’t always cover the needs for the processes in place currently, and are also costly. She favored the Civic Systems option of the four they looked at saying it has an easy to use interface and there are annual training sessions held. She noted that the company is based in Madison so they are familiar with what is required in the state.

“Not only does Civic Systems have more user friendly interface, it allows for the creation of checklists to be created for each process, but it also aids with the completion of the annual PSC reporting that is required of the City. The reporting capabilities will also allow for better reporting to be able to complete the required financial reporting in a more accurate manner as well,” Lemke stated.

“Just the overall function is a lot more user friendly,” Lemke said.

Alderman Mike Bub, who is also chairman of the county’s information technology committee, noted that the county was currently transitioning to Incode from its previous system. He questioned data transfer into the new system and if it would be used as the new general ledger program for the city.

Lemke said that it will tie in directly to the financial reporting for the city and that transfer of the data from the previous system is included in the conversion costs.

“There will always be a history of where it came from,” Lemke said of the account conversions.

Bub said that in order to make it worthwhile to do, the city has to look at the switch as being a 10 year investment. “I hope it is a good system and you use it for at least 10 years,” he said.

Aldermen unanimously supported the switch with council to take final action next week.

Pep’s Drive subdivision

A planned city-led subdivision on Pep’s Drive moved forward on Monday with aldermen giving preliminary approval to hiring Ayres Associates to develop the plat for the area with development costs being assigned to the newly created Tax Incremental District No. 14.

As part of ongoing efforts to address a lack of housing in the city, the council had previously partnered for a 64-unit apartment complex near the intersection of CTH O and Pep’s Drive. The housing efforts are continuing with a plan to develop the southern end of Pep’s Drive into a subdivision with 30 available building lots.

Harris said they had delayed bringing the approval to council pending the creation of TID 14 so that it could be included as a TID project.

The cost of the engineering work is $82,900 with the project to get underway this summer.

Charging station

City leaders are receptive to placing an electric vehicle charging station in the city.

The city is a founding member of Great Lakes Utilities (GLU), a consortium of municipal owned electric utilities that works together to purchase power for distribution through local utilities. Harris said GLU is working on developing a network of vehicle charging stations among its member communities. The station is pole-mounted and about the size of a parking meter with the ability to charge two vehicles at one time.

Those charging would either pay with a credit card or through a mobile phone app that would bill the user.

“Where the heck would you put it?” asked alderman Dave Roiger.

Harris said he could see it in a city park or city owned area in the downtown because the users would be there for some time as they charged their vehicle. Alderman Greg Knight suggested that incorporating it in the plans for the downtown farmers market would be good.

Harris said he still needs additional information from GLU about the program, noting he wanted to bring it to council for their feedback before he invested too much time into it.

“I think you have to do it,” said alderman Clem Johnson, noting that like it or not, electric vehicles are coming and they need to be prepared for them.

Mayor Mike Wellner presents a proclamation declaring April to be Autism Acceptance Month to members of the Taylor County Autism Support Group. Accepting the plaque were Diane Messman, Madelyn, Kris and Jaeden Brandner.

BRIAN WILSON/THE STAR NEWS