Primary Department: Universal Services
Primary Department Head/Elected Official: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director & CIO
Managing Department: Universal Services
Managing Department Head/Elected Official: Sindhu Menon, Executive Director & CIO
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Investment Memo
Investment Memo Type: Final Investment Memo
Project Name: N/A
Project ID (if applicable): N/A
Vendor Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWBE Current Achievement (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A - Not a grant item
Incremental Authorization Requested: $1,120,000
Total Estimated Project Cost: $1,120,000
Request Summary:
title
Request for approval of the Final Investment Memo for the Contract Lifecycle Management System project for a total authorization of $1,120,000 and commercial paper funding in the amount of $1,120,000.
end
Project Description:
Harris County utilizes multiple contract management systems and repositories across departments for managing contracts. This results in data fragmentation, making it challenging for County employees to actively monitor, track, and maintain contract compliance and contract activity. The absence of a centralized repository impacts efficiency and consistency in contract creation across the organization.
Additionally, multiple systems create various workflows that hinder the ability to effectively collaborate on contract authoring, negotiations, execution, and monitoring. The lack of standardized workflows, coupled with the lack of automation, results in a disjointed process that is difficult to manage and gain visibility into.
The main objectives include the following:
o Provide centralized visibility and control of all contract management processes
o Improve end-to-end contract process efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy.
o Reduce purchasing and contracting timelines to deliver County priority outcomes and bring results to the public more quickly.
o Storage and search capabilities for existing contracts
o Reduce costs; reduce rework and errors and increase overall process efficiency.
o Improve quality of procurement outcomes.
o Reduce employee frustration and burnout; create more fulfilling jobs.
o Standardize and store contract templates
o Create transparency into Contract Lifecycle Management roles, responsibilities, and results.
o Generate reports on cycle time and pending items
o Vendor compliance, records, and contacts
Anticipated Project Expenditures and Timeline: The timeline below is for Phase 1 implementation. The departments that will be included in phase I are still being determined.
|
Project Scope Breakdown |
Estimated Cost |
Estimated Completion |
|
Design and Planning |
$122,000 |
January 2026 |
|
HLS Sign-Off |
$122,000 |
February 2026 |
|
Execution |
$122,000 |
May 2026 |
|
User Acceptance Testing |
$183,000 |
June 2026 |
|
Go-live & Hypercare |
$61,000 |
July 2026 |
|
HCUS Implementation Support (PM, BA, Contractors) |
$400,000 |
July 2026 |
|
Contingency |
$110,000 |
|
|
Total |
$1,120,000 |
|
Justification & Alternatives:
There are limited alternatives with respect to being able to impact the overall effectiveness and productivity of the contracting process. Harris County can continue with the current disparate solutions and try to consolidate, but this is significant internal work and will not meet the goals set out by the Procure to Pay (P2P) program for improvements to the Contract Lifecycle Management System. It would likely result in increased labor to manage what the project intends to automate.
Anticipated Impact on Other Funds (If Applicable):
|
Fund Code |
Description |
Estimated Cost |
Funding Method (Existing or Future Budget Request Required) |
Estimated Date of Needs |
|
1000 |
Optional Subscription Renewal (Years 3-6) - General Fund |
$1,100,000 |
Future Budget Request |
10/2027 |
|
1000 |
Subscription License for up to 250 users (Initial 2-Year Term) |
$480,000 |
Future Budget Request |
6/2026 |
|
Total |
|
$1,580,000 |
|
- |
County Strategic Plan Goal: 2. Connect our community with safe, reliable, equitably distributed, and well-maintained infrastructure.
County Strategic Plan Objective: H: Improve the condition and resilience of County transportation, flood control, and other infrastructure.
Justice/Safety Initiative (Goal 1): Choose an item.
Infrastructure Initiative (Goal 2): F2: Improve data collection, utilization, and availability to drive better transportation safety decision-making.
Economy Initiative (Goal 3): Choose an item.
Health Initiative (Goal 4): Choose an item.
Climate/Resilience Initiative (Goal 5): Choose an item.
Housing Initiative (Goal 6): Choose an item.
Decision Analysis Matrix Score (rubric on last page):15
Previous Court Action:
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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Address: N/A
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Fiscal and Personnel Summary Service Name Current Fiscal Year Cost Annual Fiscal Cost Labor Non-Labor Total Recurring Expenses Funding Sources Existing Budget Commercial Paper $ $ 0$ $ Choose an item. $ $ $ $ Choose an item. $ $ $ $ Total Current Budget $ $ $ $ Additional Budget Request Commercial Paper $ $1,120,000 $1,120,000 $ Choose an item. $ $ $ $ Choose an item. $ $ $ $ Total Additional Budget Request $ $1,120,000 $1,120,000 $ Total Funding Request $ $1,120,000 $1,120,000 $ Personnel (Fill out section only if requesting new PCNs) Current Position Count for Service - - - - Additional Positions Request - - - - Total Personnel - - - - |
Anticipated Court Date: 8/26/2025
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date): Click or tap to enter a date.
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Note: Not an emergency, disaster, or ARPA related item
Legal funding compliance confirmed by: Paige Abernathy, Special Assistant County Attorney, 7/24/2025
Department Approval by: Heather Merkel, Universal Services Director of Budget, 8/4/2025
OMB CIP Team Approval by: William McGuinness, Director-Capital Projects & Infrastructure, 8/1/2025
Commercial Paper Request (For OMB use only):
Receiving Department: Universal Services
Project PeopleSoft ID: NI053
CP Series Description: Commercial Paper A-1 is used to (1) pay contractual obligations incurred or to be incurred for the construction of and the purchase of fixtures, equipment and machinery for or in connection with the County's criminal and civil justice centers, the County's firefighter training facility, (2) pay contractual obligations incurred or to be incurred for the purchase of automobiles and other vehicles, equipment and machinery, including computers, materials and supplies for the operations of the County precincts and departments and other authorized needs and purposes including services provided by engineers, architects, attorneys, auditors, financial advisors.
Commercial Paper is being requested for the Contract Lifecycle Management System project and is expected to be repaid within the next three fiscal years either through bonds, budgetary means or pay-as-you-go sources.
OMB Financial Management contact: Amy Perez, Deputy Executive Director, Office of Management and Budget
Decision Analysis Matrix scoring tool - Commissioners Court has approved the rubric below for scoring capital projects. Please complete the last two rows for OMB review.
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Scoring option |
Strategic Plan alignment (3x weighting) |
Evidence base |
Impact on outcomes |
Cost effectiveness |
Ease of implementation |
Collaboration / partnerships |
Environmental sustainability |
Equity |
Total |
|
-1 |
Antithetical to one or more aspects of the Strategic Plan |
Evidence shows net negative impact on the intended goal |
Impact is clearly negative |
Costs expected (or shown) to outweigh benefits |
County has no/limited existing capabilities and dependencies are likely to impede |
Could negatively impact relationships with partners |
Negatively impacts environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Inequitable |
n/a |
|
0 |
Does not align to a Strategic Objective |
Evidence base is not well defined or measurable |
Size of impact on one or more strategic outcomes is negligible or unclear |
Net comparison is unclear |
County has no/limited existing capabilities or dependencies are likely to impede |
Does not involve collaboration with partners |
Net neutral impact on environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Does not consider equity to a meaningful degree |
n/a |
|
1 |
Aligns to a Strategic Objective but not to a Strategic Initiative |
Limited evidence-based research on outcomes; may have qualitative/theoretical support |
Outcomes are defined but without target levels and/or expected impact is moderate |
Moderate direct/indirect benefit relative to costs |
County has existing capability to implement or dependencies are unlikely to impede |
Moderately expands County leverage through collaboration with partner(s) |
Marginally positive impact on environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Considers equity to a meaningful degree, but not comprehensively |
n/a |
|
2 |
Aligns to a Strategic Objective and a Strategic Initiative |
Outcomes are directly supported by evidence base or credible research supports anticipated outcomes |
Outcomes are clearly defined and include target levels; expected impact on outcomes is high |
Significant direct/indirect benefit relative to costs |
County has existing capability to implement, and dependencies are unlikely to impede |
Significantly expands County leverage through collaboration with partner(s) |
Positively impacts environment and/or climate change mitigation efforts |
Considers equity meaningfully and comprehensively |
n/a |
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Score (-1,0,1,2) |
6 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
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Rationale |
Directly supports Objective F by making efficiency and productivity improvement to the IT landscape |
New KPIs will be able to measure the effectiveness of the project |
New KPIs will be able to measure the effectiveness of the project |
Higher quality contracts done more efficiently will provided direct benefits to Harris County |
Harris County currently has no existing capabilities for software as it relates to CLM |
This project provides accountability and visibility with contract management. |
Information Technology systems do not impact the environment or climate. |
CLM services provides system redundancy across protected systems equally. |
n/a |