Our budget year starts October 1 and council has to approve spending. How does that work?

Florida local government fiscal years run October 1 to September 30, with millage and budget hearings in September under the Truth in Millage process. The practical effect on an IT vendor is that asking for money in February for something you need in March is asking for a problem, and a good provider works a cycle ahead instead.

How we handle it:

• Numbers in time for workshops. We bring you next year's picture in the spring and early summer while the budget is being built, not in October when it is adopted. That includes recurring service, equipment reaching end of life, license cost changes we know are coming, and any project we think you will need.
• Recurring and capital separated. Managed service as an operating line, hardware and projects broken out so they can go where your finance director needs them.
• Month to month agreements with 30 days notice. This matters more in government than anywhere else. It means nothing we sign obligates a future council, and it means we have to keep earning the work every month. We are happy to include a non-appropriation clause so that if the governing body does not fund the line, the agreement ends without penalty.
• A three year outlook, updated annually. Not a sales document. A list of what is aging out and when, so replacements land in the year you planned for them instead of the week a server dies.

That last one is most of what a small government should want from a provider. The technical work is fairly similar wherever you go. Being told in May that three of your servers will not make it through next year, with a number attached, is the thing that keeps you out of a mid-year emergency amendment.

One more practical note. If you need a quote in a format your finance software or your agenda packet requires, tell us what it has to look like and we will produce it that way. That is not worth anyone's friction.