Questions linger about state of Zionsville's finances

Jul. 15—For more than two years now, the Zionsville Town Council has had little to no idea about the state of the finances of the town.

For the last few town council meetings, members have not been able to approve or deny any claims for the town as the financial team was unsure if the claims were accurate, Town Council member Josh Garrett said.

"In the past, you might see us push back on a claim or a couple of claims that we need more information on or that we're not sure who authorized it or where it's coming from," Garrett said. "We're not getting any claims. So we are not being given anything that says the outstanding accounts payable for the town so there's nothing to approve or deny ... The claims not appearing on the agenda are at the request of the administration, not the council."

The Town of Zionsville is able to pay its previously-budgeted expenses like salaries, but when it comes to extra spending that has an unclear financial backing, that's where Garrett said the council is hesitant.

After almost two years of battling with its financial system, town officials cannot access basic information to produce claims reports.

A hasty switch to a new financial system sometime in 2020 and the abrupt resignation of the chief financial officer has caused many problems for the council and its financial responsibilities for the town.

In June 2020, Tammy Harvard was hired by the town of Zionsville. Garrett said Havard told everyone that the town needed a new financial system.

In a press release announcing Havard's hiring, Public Information Officer Amanda Vela said Havard previously worked with the City of Westfield as a financial strategist. During her time with Westfield, according to the press release, Havard "recovered millions of dollars for the city and implemented the OpenGov Transparency Portal to allow citizens to better understand the city's revenues and expenses."

"It functioned, but it just didn't function very well," Garrett explained.

OpenGov is a government technology company that offers cloud software for public sector accounting, planning, budgeting, citizen services, and procurement. It currently serves more than 1,000 cities including Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Minneapolis, Minn., both of which have a population more than double that of Zionsville's.

The Town of Zionsville skipped a request for proposal (RFP) process, which is done whenever a large project is underway, allowing companies to make proposals and essentially bid on the project. Instead, the town did a sole-source purchase, which is where it identified a vendor and because that vendor was providing multiple services, went to that business directly and awarded them the contract, Garrett explained.

At an Oct. 5, 2020, council meeting, Havard requested $284,160 for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for financials, which was approved. Of that, $148,000 was specifically for implementation services, with the rest going toward ongoing software maintenance.

According to Zionsville's contract with OpenGov, on Oct. 15, Zionsville paid $217,550 which was for software and professional services. Then, on Oct. 15 each year until 2024, the town is required to pay $69,550.

"What happened next, [the financial team] chose for the system to go live before it was fully tested," Garrett said. "They turned off the old system but the new system was not providing any information and reporting that we require. Pretty much for all of 2021, we have had very limited financial information. I think we received three updates in a period of 14 months."

Before the system went awry, town council members would get monthly reports that included the revenue and expenditures from the previous month, much like a bank statement. Included in those reports was the budget for each month.

"The longer you go without financials, the harder it is to truly understand what is going on with budgets and the town's finances," Garrett explained.

For months, he said, the council asked what was going on with the new system and why they couldn't get the information they needed to conduct town business. Finally, in an April 18 town council meeting, Mayor Emily Styron told council members that March financial reports would be coming soon.

"As we move forward, finance reports will resume on a monthly basis," she said. "The barriers that have prevented regular finance reports from being obtained and provided were caused by the unexpected, time-consuming challenges during the implementation of the OpenGov system."

Styron said she shares the council's frustrations with OpenGov.

In that same council meeting, Garrett asked Styron questions about the problems with OpenGov and the line of thinking about going directly to OpenGov rather than opening for public bids.

"It was a poor line of thinking," Styron said. "We should have done [more research into OpenGov] and I relied on our former CFO [Havard] to have gone through a process of evaluating other systems. She had worked with this product in a different community and the information I got from that other community sounded good."

Styron was unable to provide the specific date the town began the implementation and how long it should normally take. She added that Zionsville is an "early access program partner" with OpenGov, which means it is being developed during the implementation process.

An executive session was suggested as a way for Styron and the town council to discuss the state of the town's relationship with OpenGov. No executive session has been scheduled, Garrett said.

Vela said in an email this week that Styron was unavailable to comment for this story as the Town of Zionsville is in "legal talks" with OpenGov and is not allowed to comment on the company or the town's relationship with it. As of the writing of this story, no legal action has been officially filed according to mycase.in.gov.