HomeMy WebLinkAboutFIN-09-046 - CIS Consultant - Contract Extension - Gas Distribution Access Rule (GDAR)1
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Financial Services
REPORT TO: Councillor B. Vrbanovic, Chair, and Members of the Finance
and Corporate Services Committee
DATE OF MEETING: April 20, 2009
SUBMITTED BY: Dan Chapman, General Manager of Financial Services & City
Treasurer
PREPARED BY: Les Piotrowski, Business Systems Analyst
WARD(S) INVOLVED: n/a
DATE OF REPORT: April 15, 2009
REPORT NO.: FIN-09-046
SUBJECT: CIS (TAX/UTILITY BILLING SYSTEM) CONSULTANT -
CONTRACT EXTENSION -GAS DISTRIBUTION ACCESS
RULE (GDAR) IMPLEMENTATION
RECOMMENDATION:
THAT the contract for the CIS consultant (John
2009 to complete specifications for Phase II
Implementation;
Little) be extended by six months to the end of
of the Gas Distribution Access Rule (GDAR)
AND FURTHER THAT the cost of this extension be funded through a deferral of the CIS server
replacement to 2010
BACKGROUND:
The Ontario Energy Board introduced the Gas Distribution Access Rules (GDAR) in December
2002. The implementation deadline set by the Ontario Energy Board was June 1, 2007. As
anticipated, the final specifications for the system were not known until mid-March 2007,
resulting in some unavoidable redesign/rework being required for Phase I. To meet the June 1,
2007 deadline some system requirements were "carved off" until Phase II and some temporary
manual "work-arounds" were put in place, with the automated solution for these components
being delayed until Phase II. As a result of Phase I efforts, over 122,000 electronic transactions
in 2008 came through our Electronic Business Transaction system.
In the fall of 2008, it was anticipated that the work of the CIS consultant relative to GDAR Phase
II would be complete by mid-2009 and that his contract with the City would terminate at that
time. However, the introduction of multiple delivery rates in the gas utility sector necessitated a
re-prioritization of project work and a deferral of some Phase II GDAR work. It is now clear that
the work of the CIS consultant relative to GDAR Phase II will not be complete by mid-2009 in
light of this deferral. A six month extension to the contract is being sought to complete GDAR
Phase II design.
REPORT:
The use of the CIS consultant (John Little) to lead the design component for GDAR Phase II is
the most cost effective approach to take as the consultant's expert knowledge of the design of
Phase I is considered a key requirement for the successful completion of Phase II. The
consultant is the developer of the original system, has been involved since GDAR's legislated
introduction and has insight into the requirements to complete the project.
As the original system architect, the CIS consultant's assistance in transitioning to a self-
sufficient model and developing system design documents has been invaluable since the City
became self-supporting for the CIS system in May 2000. The succession plan over the last
several years has been to increase the capacity of the internal staff project team to allow for the
phasing out of the use of the external consultant. That plan has been working very well to date,
resulting in all support and much of the design for smaller modules in the system, and all
development of new modules now being completed by the internal staff project team. This has
allowed for other system improvements and modules to proceed such as a-post and improved
collections processes.
The legislative environment related to natural gas vendors and vendor billing options and
specifications is constantly changing. In addition, Smart Metering, deposit interest and Low
Income Customer legislation is on the horizon for natural gas. Given those potential changes,
staff will be evaluating the approach to resourcing CIS system development as part of the larger
IT strategy in 2009 and will report to Council on the results of this review.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS:
To date, GDAR Phase I has cost approximately $1.5 million in staff time and external resources.
The City has benefited from this by comparison to the $23 million Union Gas and $22 million
that Enbridge have spent to date. Although Union Gas and Enbridge have significantly larger
client bases, the GDAR compliance requirements are the same regardless of the size of the
system.
The approximate cost of a 6 month extension of the CIS consultant is $125,000, which can be
funded through a deferral of the replacement of the CIS server to 2010 ($147,500 budget).
While the deferral of the server replacement introduces some risk to system stability, the
maintenance of CIS consultant support to the end of 2009 has been identified as a higher
priority by the CIS Steering Committee.
ACKNOWLEDGED BY: Dan Chapman, General Manager of Financial Services & City Treasurer