STARKVILLE – How many buildings does the city own? Or how many fire hydrants does it have in operation?
Assistant City Planner Lyle MeCaskey said 65 and 1,243 when he came before the board of aldermen during its Friday work session. He presented those numbers as he recommended the city switch its asset management system to Open Gov, a system that would allow the city to keep track of everything it owns, along with citizens’ requests for repairs and maintenance.
“The city’s growing. It’s expanding,” MeCaskey said. “At a certain point, you ask yourself, can I keep up with everything and every individual detail that comes along with that expansion? And while we do our best to do so, there are obviously some areas we look to improve.”
The contract with Open Gov would not exceed $208,188 over two years, with charges between June and September not exceeding $40,074.70, MeCaskey said. The price is an increase from the city’s previous system, he said, which charges about $30,000 annually.
MeCaskey told The Dispatch the city started transitioning its permitting process to Open Gov in February, since the software is more user-friendly for citizens applying for a permit. That system should be online in June, he said.
While MeCaskey was already working with Open Gov for permitting, the software company also pitched its asset management system, which is more in-depth than the software the city currently uses – tracking everything from street signs and benches to water and sewer lines.
The city needs to know what it owns, MeCaskey said, but he believes the new system could also help in the long-run with managing issues citizens report.
Currently, he said, citizens may make a complaint to different departments, and the correct department may not be aware of the other complaints or the number of complaints.
But with the new asset management system, he said, all citizen requests for maintenance will be aggregated together and easy to find internally for city employees, along with work history on any particular asset.
“If we have one person calling in over at the (street department) and one person calling in at City Hall, saying ‘Hey, there’s a pothole, and it’s right outside of City Hall,’ when we go in to put in that work order, we can see that other people said that, and we can tie it together and we can tie it to the asset that’s being fixed,” MeCaskey said. “So if we’ve repaired a pothole in front of City Hall 13 times in the past three years, we can identify that maybe there’s some issue with the subgrade or something like that.”
Tracking the city’s assets in depth, MeCaskey said, will also help with predicting problems and replacing them before issues occur. For example, MeCaskey told The Dispatch, the air conditioner on the roof of the Starkville-Oktibbeha County Public Library was almost 40 years old when it broke down last summer and had to be replaced.
“This is a good way of basically being able to be accountable for these things,” MeCaskey said. “The system helps us outline that these are old assets. They’re depreciated. Either look at saving up your money, or at doing preventative maintenance.”
The system could also help the city with keeping track of warranties on things like HVAC systems, MeCaskey said, in the case that something does break down.
Generating that level of detailed data will take time, MeCaskey told The Dispatch. He predicted that once the contract with Open Gov began, it could take as long as 18 months to create that data and see the effects.
Mayor Lynn Spruill said the city has been discussing data management for years. While the timing of adding a new item to the budget in May can be “problematic,” she said the city’s other contract for its asset management is close to needing to be renewed. By switching now, she said, the city will avoid “double dipping.”
“I think it’s got an enormous amount of value,” Spruill said.
Ward 2 Alderwoman and budget chair Sandra Sistrunk said she believes the city can manage the additional charges this year and will be able to build it into next year’s budget.
The board added consideration of the new contract to its consent agenda, to be approved officially at its Tuesday night meeting.
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