A technological renaissance may be imminent for Laguna Woods Village.
During a regular meeting of the board last week, the Golden Rain Foundation passed a resolution that would upgrade the current enterprise resource planning system to a $4 million cloud-based platform.
ERP systems are a type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day activities, from accounting to human relations, Director Debbie Dotson, a member of the Information Technology Advisory Committee, said in her Feb. 1 presentation of the four-phase Technology Modernization Plan.
“The digital transformation from where we are now,” Dotson said, “is like keeping our current brain with all of our knowledge and experience, but enhancing it and getting a brand-new body to carry it into the future.”
Reasons for the upgrade include outdated processes and functional obsolescence that are expensive or can no longer be supported, according to a Village Management Services staff report.
Security vulnerabilities such as the Russian ransomware attack in October 2020 are also an impetus for change, Dotson added.
After a 700-hour evaluation process that surveyed ERP software, stakeholders – a group made up of residents, board members, VMS staff and business consultants – selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 as the frontrunner.
While switching to a cloud-based ERP will initially cost more than renewing the current system – about $1.6 million more – it is also projected to save $271,000 annually in IT and licensing fees after five years, Director Jim Hopkins said.
Renewing the current setup would have cost GRF $2.4 million. Upgrading to a cloud-based system will cost $4 million.
According to the staff report, an additional $2.5 million will be allotted from the GRF reserves, adding to the budgeted $1.5 million, to replace the software.
In terms of operational expenses, the new technology is projected to save nearly $700,000 over a five-year period and $2 million over a 10-year period, Hopkins said.
Hopkins, who is serving as chair of the Information Technology Advisory Committee, said these savings occur due to the elimination of IT licensing fees paid in eight-year cycles for software that is inherent to a cloud-based system.
Full implementation is projected for the end of 2024.
“At the end of the day, we are a customer service organization,” Dotson said. “Improving that is our mission.”
GRF unanimously approved the resolution. The resolution awaits further approval at a meeting of the corporate members on Friday, Feb. 11.
COVID-19 update
Public health officials reported a decrease in daily COVID-19 case rates across Orange County, with the latest reports indicating that about 58 new cases are being reported a day for every 100,000 residents, according to the OC Health Care Agency.
“We’ve seen a nice drop in the numbers,” said VMS CEO Jeff Parker, who retired from his post Thursday, Feb. 3. “There is a good progression of lower cases, hospitalizations and ICU [patients].”
Trends parallel in the testing positivity rate – the number of swabs and spit tests that return with traces of the coronavirus – which stands at 11.3, a drop of more than 10%.
As for the health equity rate – the test positivity of disproportionately impacted neighborhoods – it is now down to 9.5%.
The cumulative case count in the city of Laguna Woods has surpassed 1,000. An additional four deaths have been reported, totaling 65 fatalities to date.
Public health officials say the state’s indoor mask mandate will be dropped on Wednesday, Feb. 16, in most settings for those who are vaccinated.
“Hopefully … we’ll see a continuation of this reduction and maybe the state can go back into more of a ‘normal world,’” Parker said.