REPORT TO SHASTA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

BOARD MEETING DATE:  February  6, 2018
CATEGORY:  Consent - Other Departments-17.

SUBJECT:

Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (MSEA) Renewal

Supervisorial District No. :  All

DEPARTMENT CONTACT:  Tom Schreiber, Chief Information Officer, 530-225-5273

STAFF REPORT APPROVED BY:  Tom Schreiber, Chief Information Officer

RECOMMENDATION

Take the following actions: (1) Approve and authorize the Chairman to sign a retroactive renewal agreement with  Microsoft Volume Licensing Enterprise Enrollment  in an amount of $1,291,910.64 to provide maintenance and support of Microsoft Client Access software licenses, Windows desktop operating system licenses, and Office 365 (O365) subscription licenses for the period February 1, 2018 through January 31, 2021; and (2) approve and authorize the County Executive Officer  to sign amendments to the agreement to add additional software products as Microsoft makes them available as part of the O365 software component to the list of available options that do not otherwise result in a substantial or functional change to the intent of the original agreement as long as they comply with Administrative Policy 6-101, Shasta County Contracts Manual.  

SUMMARY

N/A

DISCUSSION

Since 2001 the County has participated in the Microsoft Enterprise agreement. This agreement was negotiated for California state and local governments by Riverside County as the lead agency and is available to all California state agencies, cities, and counties.  The purpose of the agreement is to pool the buying power of all of these entities to accomplish discounted pricing not available through traditional purchasing channels.  Shasta County’s current enrollment in the Microsoft Enterprise agreement expired January 31, 2018.  Approval of the Microsoft Volume Licensing Enterprise Enrollment renewal agreement will allow the County to continue obtaining Microsoft products at a significant discount, as explained further below.

The enrollment agreement before the Board provides maintenance, support, and upgrades for software that are critical for the County to conduct business.  The majority of this software is in the form of Client Access Licenses (CALs).  This includes CALs for each computer in the County to be able to utilize email and CALs for each computer to be able to store and share files on the County’s network along with being able to print to network attached printers.  All of this is bundled in the Core User CAL.  CALs are also required for every computer in the County to use the Structured Query Language (SQL) databases located on central file servers.  These SQL databases house the majority of data used by computer systems throughout County government and, as a result, every County computer must have a valid SQL CAL. Office 365 (O365) licenses are also included for several departments which provides the current and upgrade licenses rights to the Microsoft Office Suite of applications.

The benefits of enrolling in the Microsoft Enterprise agreement include cost savings, more streamlined management of software licenses, maintaining security, and a more even cash flow.  The Microsoft Enterprise agreement provides an extra 5% to 15% cost savings depending on product compared to the best discounts the County could receive through other channels.  Using the Microsoft Enterprise agreement also allows the County to spread these costs evenly over three years as opposed to paying the total cost up front as required through other channels.  This agreement requires three equal payments in advance of each year of the term, which is standard business practice for these products and services.

Managing software licenses through the Microsoft Enterprise agreement is considerably less involved than when purchasing these products via other methods.  At the end of each year the County will submit a report that shows the net increase in computers and the pre-determined true-up amount is paid for each of the total net new computers.  If there is no increase, no true-up costs are incurred.  This process is much simpler than the alternative of keeping track of each individual software license, which is quite cumbersome.

ALTERNATIVES

The Board may choose not to approve the agreement terms, in which case all Microsoft licenses County-wide would need to be purchased individually at a higher cost. No other cost effective alternatives have been identified.

OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT

County Counsel has approved the documents as to form. Risk Management has reviewed and approved the documents.  The County Administrative Office has reviewed the recommendation.

FINANCING

Total costs for the three-year Microsoft Enterprise agreement are $1,291,910.64 and will be paid in annual installments of $430,636.88. The Information Technology (IT) department has included these costs in the IT budget for FY 2017-18 and will include the costs for the entire term in future budgets.  The IT department passes the MSEA costs to the user departments via a “per computer” or “per user” charge based on the license type.  The O365 costs are passed directly to the departments that subscribe to the O365 service.

Estimates of such costs are provided to the user departments for annual budget preparation.