Stop the Software Bleed

The upcoming September 14 Council meeting includes the City’s preliminary 2027 budget process. The staff report says:

“The fall budget process will focus on the 2027 operating budget, including the first year of using Euna as part of budget development.”

The agenda preview also explains that most departments will continue using their established Excel budget templates during this transition year.

That caught my attention because Council approved a $325,292 five-year contract for Euna budgeting software in April 2025.

By the end of 2026, roughly $155,000 will have been funded for Euna, while 2027 is only the first year it becomes part of actual budget development.

Read the September 14 Council agenda preview on HelpOS

We are building on a dying foundation

Underneath Euna sits Microsoft Dynamics GP, the City’s core system for accounting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, property taxes and utility billing.

Microsoft is ending Dynamics GP product support in 2029.

The City has also budgeted $164,200 for a GP/work-order software transformation project.

So we are spending $164,200 improving a financial system approaching retirement, while spending another $325,292 for proprietary budgeting software layered around it.

And the City’s total software-maintenance budget has reached $696,756 per year, up from $492,371 in 2024.

That is an increase of $204,385, or 41.5%, in only two years.

We are giving up control

Every additional proprietary system brings another subscription, vendor relationship, integration and migration problem.

Euna’s current Canadian data-processing agreement says customer personal information is primarily processed in the United States, unless separate Canadian data-residency arrangements have been made.

Our municipal financial infrastructure should be under local control.

What I will do as Mayor

I will stop the planned full migration into Euna and pursue cancellation of the remaining contract before Owen Sound becomes dependent on it.

About $170,000 of scheduled Euna costs remain.

I would also redirect the $164,200 currently budgeted for the GP/work-order transformation toward replacing GP itself.

Together, that represents more than $330,000 of already planned spending that could instead help pay for the replacement, subject to existing contracts and what has already been spent.

A careful transition to a mature open-source financial platform such as ERPNext, including data migration, accounting, accounts payable and receivable, property tax, water billing, security, testing and local infrastructure, is reasonably estimated at roughly $140,000–$250,000.

We have already allocated enough money to begin building the replacement.

The City can keep the Excel processes staff already understand during the transition. The new financial system can run alongside GP until every balance reconciles to the cent.

Then GP can be retired.

The new system would run on servers here in Owen Sound and Grey County. The City would control its financial database, source code and infrastructure.

Then we keep the real savings

We can already identify substantial recurring proprietary software costs:

• Euna: about $55,500 per year
• ProjectTeam: $24,840 per year
• StoneShare/Gimmal records management: $42,000 per year
• Cloudpermit: about $44,000 per year in additional operating cost compared with the system it replaced

That is approximately $166,000 per year in documented recurring costs across just four systems.

That still does not include the City’s actual annual costs for Dynamics GP, WorkTech, PerfectMind recreation and facility booking, and other systems buried inside the $696,756 software-maintenance budget.

As Mayor, I would use my authority during budget preparation to direct staff to provide the vendor invoices, contracts, licence costs, support fees and termination dates behind that number.

I would publish them in a Software Cost Ledger so residents can see exactly what we are paying for and which systems can be consolidated or replaced.

Not every system would disappear immediately. They would be replaced carefully as functions are migrated and tested.

But every recurring proprietary cost we genuinely eliminate becomes money that can go back into roads, transit, housing, emergency services and other priorities, or simply reduce the amount Council needs to collect in property taxes.

Build it here and share it

Other municipalities need the same things Owen Sound does: accounting, property taxation, water billing, budgeting and financial reporting.

The municipal modules we develop should be open source.

Georgian Bluffs, Meaford, Hanover and other municipalities could use them. When another municipality improves the software, Owen Sound can benefit from those improvements too.

Instead of municipalities repeatedly paying proprietary vendors to solve the same problems, we can build it once, improve it together and keep the money in our communities.

Stop the software bleed. Build it here. Own it. Share it. Use the savings for better services and lower taxes.