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FINANCE
AND ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE |
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ITEM: |
ACTION ITEM |
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24. |
CONSIDER APPROVING 5-YEAR AGREEMENT WITH DEVEERA, INC. FOR
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES |
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Meeting
Date: |
June
12, 2023
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Budgeted:
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Yes
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From: |
David J.
Stoldt, |
Program/ |
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General
Manager |
Line Item No. : |
IT Services |
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Prepared
By: |
Suresh
Prasad |
Cost Estimate: |
$332,200 (23-24 $62,500; 24-25 $64,400; 25-26 $66,400;
26-27 $68,400; 27-28 $70,500) |
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General Counsel Review:
N/A
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Committee Recommendation: The Finance and Administration Committee
reviewed this item on June 12, 2023 and recommended
_____________.
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CEQA Compliance: This action does not constitute a project
as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Section
15378. |
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SUMMARY: With
the retirement of District’s Information Technology (IT) Manager, there was a
need to immediately find a replacement to fill that position. Based on the size and needs of the District, the replacement of a full time IT Manager position
can most effectively be filled with the services of a consultant firm.
With only two and half weeks of retirement notice from the outgoing IT
Manager, District staff immediately started contacting IT consulting firms in
the area to solicit proposals. Three
firms were contacted (Rayne Technology, DeVeera, Inc., and Alvarez Technology).
Staff met with all three firms and went over the District’s
requirements for IT services. All three
firms had representatives spend few hours on-site going through the discovery
process to gather information.
Information gathered during this discovery process was used to compile
proposals delivered by the IT firms.
Some of the services provided will be monitoring server 24/7, server and
workstation preventative maintenance, virus and anti-spam protection, network
monitoring, and help desk support, etc.
After evaluating the District’s IT infrastructure inventory, all three
firms recommended the District immediately change its
backup and disaster recovery (BDR) system.
In the event of catastrophic IT failure, the District’s
old BDR system would have taken weeks to rebuild and recover data. There could potentially have been
irrecoverable data losses. With the
proposed change in updating the BDR system, the recovery time would be reduced
to approximately few hours with no loss of data.
Since outsourcing IT services was a new concept to the District,
staff trialed with outsourcing the IT services on a short-term basis. This
short-term trial period was from September 2019 through June 2020.
On September 16, 2019, the Board approved a 9-month contract with DeVeera
Inc. to perform IT managed services for the District. During the initial term of the contract, DeVeera
implemented the BDR system which is now backing up District data on an hourly
basis. There were other IT pending
projects that were completed during the initial term. After initial term, the District
had contract extension for a 3-year term which will end on June 30, 2023.
Staff reached out to DeVeera for a contract extension. DeVeera has
proposed continuing the IT services for the District
for a 5-year term with 3% increase each year in costs. Continuing with outsourcing IT services will
yield savings of approximately $150,000 per year by not hiring a full-time
employee.
RECOMMENDATION: The Finance and Administration Committee
should recommend authorizing the
General Manager or the Administrative Services Manager/CFO to enter into a
5-year agreement with DeVeera, Inc. to provide Information Technology services
for a not-to-exceed amount of $332,200.
24-A Proposals for IT managed services from DeVeera Inc.