📍 Warren County Government Center
📅 January 20, 2026

On January 20, 2026, the Warren County Board of Supervisors considered a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) to replace the County’s legacy AS400 financial system.

The agenda item (I.2) proposed publishing an RFP for software and implementation services for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) financial system.

The existing system — Bright, running on AS400 architecture — is text-based, green-screen, and dependent on RPG programming for complex data extraction. While stable, it presents real limitations in accessibility, reporting, and responsiveness to public records requests.

I spoke in support of modernization — but with one request: slow the process just enough to finalize the scope.

Why Replace The AS400?

The draft RFP outlines the County’s goals:

• Replace fragmented financial systems
• Improve reporting and automation
• Enhance workflow efficiency
• Improve online portal capabilities

The ERP project has been under development since mid-2025, including:

• Needs assessment sessions
• Joint requirements planning
• Vendor outreach
• A detailed functional requirements workbook

This is not a rushed initiative.

It is a significant modernization effort.

The Scope Concern

My support was clear.

But two questions remained:

1. Are the Treasurer and Commissioner of Revenue fully included?

The agenda explicitly asks whether those offices should be included in the RFP or contracted separately through cooperative procurement.

Those offices are central to public accountability.

Uncertainty about inclusion affects:

• Vendor pricing
• Proposal comparability
• Implementation complexity

Finalizing scope before release improves competition and reduces risk.

2. Is FOIA Responsiveness Defined As A Use Case?

The functional and technical requirements document reportedly contains nearly 1,400 requirements — many labeled “critical.”

When everything is critical, prioritization becomes unclear.

More importantly:

While reporting tools and exports are included, the system does not explicitly define public records requests as a required use case.

Questions that matter:

• Can non-programmers extract records?
• What are performance expectations under statutory deadlines?
• Will vendor assistance be required to fulfill requests?
• What are turnaround guarantees?

In a system replacing a platform that currently requires specialized RPG expertise to retrieve certain datasets, those questions are not theoretical.

They are practical.

Finance & Audit Oversight

I also asked whether the Finance & Audit Committee had input regarding:

• Data access tools
• Reporting capabilities
• Oversight needs

Modernization should not only improve internal workflow — it should improve oversight transparency.

What I Asked

I did not ask the Board to stop the project.

I asked them to slow it slightly to finalize the scope —particularly regarding FOIA responsiveness and cross-departmental inclusion.

Replacing the AS400 is a major structural decision.

Clarity at the front end prevents cost escalation and operational blind spots later.

Why This Matters

This discussion is not about nostalgia for green screens.

It’s about:

• Data accessibility
• Public records responsiveness
• Vendor neutrality
• Clear prioritization
• Oversight integrity

Modern systems can increase transparency — but only if transparency is designed into the requirements.

Transcript

0:00 Good evening, Madam Chair, members of
0:01 the board. My name is Lewis Moten and I
0:05 live in the North River District. I
0:07 support replacing the AS400 and
0:10 modernizing our financial systems. I’ve
0:13 seen what it looks like. It’s like a uh
0:15 textbased green
0:18 system from the 90s that you log on with
0:20 the old CRT monitors. I think we can
0:24 jump ahead, but accessing the data is
0:27 difficult
0:28 and it usually requires somebody who
0:30 still programs an RPG,
0:33 a rare and expensive skill for requests
0:37 such as FOYA.
0:40 Um, and under time pressure, you know,
0:42 that can mean finding help at a short
0:45 time notice and a great cost to both the
0:48 county in time and the individual making
0:51 the requests and funds to pay for that.
0:55 Um, as the RFP moves forward, I’m
0:57 concerned that the scope is still
0:59 unsettled,
1:01 particular whether the treasur and the
1:03 commissioner of revenue have been
1:05 included on this conversation.
1:07 Um,
1:09 They’re central. Uh we they are part of
1:12 public accountability and uncertainty
1:14 here makes it difficult for vendors to
1:17 uh price accurately for the county to
1:18 compare proposals meaningfully.
1:21 The functional and technical
1:22 requirements document contains almost
1:25 1,400
1:27 individual requirements and the majority
1:30 of those are labeled critical.
1:34 um it just becomes noise as to what
1:37 actually is critical and what isn’t. Uh
1:40 what should the priority be?
1:42 Uh there’s also the foyer responsiveness
1:46 is overlooked. It includes reporting
1:49 tools and exports but it never treats
1:50 public records requests as a defined use
1:53 case. There are no requirements for
1:55 non-programmer data access. No
1:57 performance expectations
1:59 for creating the records under the
2:02 statutory deadlines and no demonstration
2:04 of criteria showing how requests would
2:06 actually be fulfilled whether you need
2:08 to contact the vendor to fulfill those
2:11 requests.
2:13 Um I would like to ask if the finance
2:16 and audit committee has had direct input
2:18 of what the data access reporting tools
2:20 that they need to perform their
2:22 oversight duties effectively were
2:24 considered in the modern system. I’m not
2:27 asking you to stop the process. I’m
2:29 asking it to just slow it enough to
2:31 finalize the scope, especially around
2:33 FOYA.