An aging and increasingly jury-rigged legacy system is no longer able to meet the complex data processing needs of Johnson City. As a result, they have licensed Oracle Cloud products and chosen Highstreet to be their implementer and partner in this project. Highstreet is enthusiastic to execute the digital transformation Johnson City desperately needs to realize improved business results and eliminate redundant, manual systems.
Johnson City is nestled in the northeastern corner of Tennessee and has a population of nearly 69,000 residents. Situated in the heart of the Southern Appalachians, between Roan Mountain and the Great Smoky Mountains, Johnson City is within a day’s drive of most major cities in the Eastern United States. It is home to East Tennessee State University, along with ETSU’s James H. Quillen College of Medicine and the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center at neighboring Mountain Home.
The City provides a wide range of services similar to other jurisdictions in the State, including public safety (both Police and Fire), municipal and regional solid waste services, municipal and regional water and sewer services, parks and recreation, a civic center, seniors’ center, one golf course, a mass transit system, public works, and a school system.
The City’s primary financial system is Local Government Financial Software (LocalGov). The City implemented Zortec by LocalGov (also referred to as LocalGov or TinyTerm) in 2000, and like many other public sector organizations, the system has been customized to meet the needs of the organization.
Functionally, NextGen is currently used by the City for general ledger, budget control, accounting, project cost tracking and financial reporting, and Zortec is used for purchasing, accounts payable, fixed asset tracking, inventory control, accounts receivable, treasury, human resources, benefits, payroll, time entry, property tax billing and collections, point of sale receipting (fees, charges for service, police fines, etc.) and utility billing. ApplicantPro is used for recruitment and applicant tracking.
Johnson City’s current systems have served them for many years; however, the software has reached end of life and lacks many modern features found in Oracle Cloud. Their current system lacks the ability to integrate with other applications and as a result, many of the City’s business processes rely on manual, and often redundant, work-arounds to meet increasingly complex processing needs. Oracle Cloud will allow the automation of many business processes and will be a fully integrated system.
“Highstreet is excited to partner with Johnson City to modernize their business processes. All team members are geared up for this implementation of Oracle Cloud Financials, including Supply Chain Management, Human Capital Management with Payroll and Enterprise Performance Management. The Johnson City team has met all of their targets to get to this point and we are thrilled to kick-off this project.”
– Amy Prevosto, Sr. Project Manager
The City engaged the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) to assess business processes, identify future state process improvements and requirements, and to assist with planning and readiness activities related to ERP acquisition and implementations. As a part of the process review and readiness activities, the City identified process specific teams (process improvement teams / PIT) that are dedicated to reviewing, documenting, and developing future and improved business processes. These teams have been tasked to also review existing policies and procedures, and where appropriate, recommend changes in advance of the implementation.
The project has established executive sponsorship and a governance structure, project charter, and project goals that will guide decision making throughout the project. The project has also collaborated with cross-organizational management and end-users and expects that this project will result in an enterprise system that meets its needs and greatly reduces the number of offline tools and spreadsheets in use today.
