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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,March 11,2013 Page 16 Having worked on the managerial side with a similar system, Councilmember Laliberte noted the potential time savings. However, Councilmember Laliberte expressed her concern with the ongoing cost for the program after initial setup, and expressed her hesitancy in authorizing staff to move forward without having the actual cost available from HealthPartners, as well as the unknown quantity if and when changing carriers. At the request of Councilmember Laliberte, Ms. Bacon advised that the City had been with the current provider, HealthPartners for five (5) years. Ms. Bacon not- ed that the carrier costs could be addressed as an option, and without those carrier links, the cost for warehousing data would be $7.25 per employee. If that were the case, Ms. Bacon advised that she would continue to do benefits online,but she would download that data and manipulate files and print them out to ship to the carriers. With that as one feasible option, Ms. Bacon suggested that this shouldn't be a primary concern in considering the overall system and its potential efficien- cies. Councilmember McGehee noted her initial interest based on the ability to quickly pull data together and generate reports to the City Council in a more timely man- ner (e.g. during contract negotiations). For every piece eliminated from the pack- age, Councilmember McGehee opined that this would just further delay availabil- ity of receiving that information for decision-making and cause staff to have to generate reports manually. From her perspective, Councilmember McGehee opined that this was an important piece of the system. Acting Mayor Etten stated that he didn't see it that way, since once the data was processed and an employee record updated into the main database, staff should still be able to produce the information, whether manually or sent off automatical- ly for Ms. Bacon's review and processing. Ms. Bacon concurred to a certain extent; however, she reviewed the current re- dundancies in entering employee benefit data into an Excel spreadsheet, then submitting that to the Payroll Department, with dual time spent getting the infor- mation submitted and then charged back to the employee. City Manager Malinen reviewed the initial budgeting of$40,000.00 in 2013 for an HRIS, with an additional $20,000.00 anticipated from reserves annually for ongoing maintenance; and that $20,000.00 thereafter as a subsequent and ongoing annual levy cost. At the request of Councilmember Laliberte, Ms. Bacon clarified that this software program had a payroll function; however, it would mean that the current Spring- brook software system used by the system could no longer be used. In her consul- tations with the Finance Department, Ms. Bacon advised that it would be difficult