ITEM:

CONSENT CALENDAR

 

24.

CONSIDER APPROVING 3-YEAR AGREEMENT WITH DEVEERA, INC. FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

 

Meeting Date:

June 20, 2023

Budgeted: 

Yes

 

From:

David J. Stoldt,

Program/

 

 

General Manager

Line Item No. :

IT Services

 

 

 

 

Prepared By:

Suresh Prasad

Cost Estimate:

$192,900                 (2023-2024 $62,500; 2024-2025 $64,200; 2025-2026 $66,200)

 

General Counsel Review:  N/A

Committee Recommendation:  The Finance and Administration Committee reviewed this item on June 12, 2023 and recommended the original request for a 5-year agreement be changed to 3-year due to future staffing changes within the District.

CEQA Compliance:  This action does not constitute a project as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Section 15378.

 

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 recommends authorizing the General Manager or the Administrative Services Manager/CFO to enter into a 3-year agreement with DeVeera, Inc. to provide Information Technology services for a not-to-exceed amount of $192,900.  

 

EXHIBIT

24-A    Proposals for IT managed services from DeVeera Inc.

 

 

 

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