Say it isn’t so. A newspaper report today pointed out that the oversight board is ready to wield its stick against the City if the City does not get moving on a financial management system, also known as an "Enterprise Resource Planning System" which manages an organization’s accounting, payroll, human resource functions, etc. and which the City lacks.

The Act 47 amended plan-adopted in 2009-said "the City shall continue to work with the County to merge its ERP functions to the County’s platform by December 31, 2009". There was no midnight marathon session like we saw with the pension bailout this past New Year’s Eve. For those keeping score at home, we are now 421 days past the Act 47 deadline for the integration. If the City was willing to ignore that directive, what hope is there that the oversight board’s admonishment will fare any better?

There should be no surprise, after delays in moving purchasing to the County took longer than it should have, the study to answer the question of whether to merge the City and County took longer than it should have, and now this. The City claims it wants to look at other options, including going onto the Water and Sewer Authority’s management platform.

It is especially galling since the City has already appropriated the money ($10 million) but says it is reluctant to move ahead because the sale of the Municipal Courts building somehow figures into the financing of the deal. Instead they prefer to stick with the "fragmented" and "obsolete" system as described by the Act 47 team.