Broward County Commission Regular Meeting

A. MOTION TO APPROVE only reasonable source designation of MTS Solutions, Inc. (MTS) as an authorized reseller and provider of a document management information system used by Water and Wastewater Services (WWS), including migration from an end-of-life software to a new platform and support and maintenance services for WWS. (Commission Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9) 

ACTION:  (T-10:48 AM)  Approved.

VOTE:  9-0.

B. MOTION TO AUTHORIZE Director of Purchasing to negotiate and execute a Second Amendment to the Software License, Maintenance, and Support Agreement Between Broward County and MTS Software Solutions, Inc., subject to approval from the County Attorney's Office as to legal sufficiency, to migrate WWS' existing document management system from Fortis to DocuWare, to provide professional services, to provide support and maintenance services, to extend the agreement for up to four optional one-year extensions, and to increase the total not-to-exceed amount by an additional $418,000 to a new not-to-exceed amount of $553,000. (Commission Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9)

ACTION:  (T-10:48 AM)  Approved.

VOTE:  9-0.

Motion A.  Board of County Commissioners' approval is required when there is only one reasonable source procurement above the award authority of the Director of Purchasing in accordance with Broward County Procurement Code Section 21.34.  
 
Motion B. Board of County Commissioners' approval is required for all contracts for supplies and services of more than five years in accordance with Broward County Procurement Code, Section 21.43. and to authorize the Director of Purchasing to execute agreements in accordance with Broward County Procurement Code, Section 21.14.c.6.

Motions A and B provide for continuity of existing document management software system.

None.

THE PURCHASING DIVISION AND DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS, WATER AND WASTEWATER SERVICES DIVISION RECOMMEND THE APPROVAL OF THE ABOVE MOTIONS.

Fortis is the proprietary software of DocuWare and is the document management system in use by all divisions at Water and Wastewater Services. This software electronically captures, stores, and organizes documents and business information such as human resources, various financial documents and contract project management-related documents enabling immediate and reliable access to critical information. Fortis is also used to store customer utility billing statements for the County's 60,000 customers. Water and Wastewater Services has over 5,000,000 documents electronically stored in Fortis with staff accessing this data on a daily basis.

Fortis was originally procured in 1998 with a total investment thus far of approximately $400,000. Subsequent license purchases, upgrades, and additional modules have been procured to expand and enhance the use of Fortis with other software applications. The Fortis Application is now bundled with lmagelT, a module that allows customer service representatives to access Fortis documents directly from the Water and Wastewater Services’ Utility Billing System.

DocuWare purchased Westbrook Technologies, the developer of Fortis, in 2013 and DocuWare continued to offer and support Fortis software. MTS continued to be an authorized reseller and entity providing support and maintenance services for both the Fortis and DocuWare software platforms, however, support for Fortis products will be discontinued on December 31, 2018.

DocuWare is an Enterprise Content Management modular software solution that will permit staff to streamline processes that drive improved productivity, reduce costs, and increase efficiencies across the agency.
 
The existing agreement with MTS for the Fortis software was executed on September 21, 2015. The Parties entered into a First Amendment to extend the Agreement through December 31, 2018.

Staff researched alternate options and found that because MTS is able to transfer licenses from Fortis to DocuWare on a one-to-one basis at no additional licensing cost to County, amending and extending the existing agreement with MTS to provide for migration to the DocuWare platform is in the best interest of the County.

The amounts referenced in this Agenda Item has been rounded to the nearest whole dollar.

Alan W. Garcia, P.E. Director, Water and Wastewater Services Division, (954) 831-0704
Thomas J. Hutka, P.E. Director , Public Works Department, (954) 357-6410