To: Board of Supervisors
From: Marc Shorr, Information Technology Director
Report Title: Enterprise Agreement with Environmental Systems Research Institute
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
APPROVE and AUTHORIZE the Chief Information Officer, or designee, to execute a Master Agreement and an Enterprise Agreement with Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (Esri), in an amount not to exceed $1,600,000 for geospatial software licenses, maintenance, and online services for the period of July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The cost for this agreement is within the Department’s FY 25-26 budget and will be budgeted in the following two fiscal years. 100% User Departments.
BACKGROUND:
The Department of Information Technology’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) team plays a vital role in supporting all County departments by providing geographic data services, including mapping and visualization, spatial analysis, data management, planning support, and emergency response. In recent years, the County has strategically expanded and modernized its GIS program to enhance service delivery across all departments. ArcGIS has emerged as a critical enterprise system, serving as the authoritative geospatial system of record for essential workflows such as the annual homelessness Point-in-Time Count, land records parcel editing, and public works asset tracking.
In collaboration with Esri, the GIS team led a comprehensive Geospatial Strategy Workshop that brought together key stakeholders from across County departments. This initiative aimed to align geospatial capabilities with the County’s organizational goals and business needs, identify challenges, and guide future technology deployments. As a result, new GIS applications and workflows have been developed to address the evolving geospatial needs of the entire County.
The proposed Enterprise Agreement (EA) software package provides expanded licensing capacity to support the County’s Geospatial Strategy over the next three years. This increased capacity offers significant value by ensuring the County remains at the forefront of rapidly advancing geospatial technologies, enabling innovation, scalability, and improved service delivery across departments.
The benefits of the EA agreement include:
• A lower cost per unit for licensed software.
• Substantially reduced administrative and procurement expenses.
• Maintenance on all Esri software identified in this proposal and deployed within the organization.
• Complete flexibility to deploy software products when and where needed.
The EA agreement includes maintenance on all the software the County currently utilizes which will eliminate the need to renew those agreements on an annual basis. This purchase is being made via sole source approved by the Purchasing Agent on June 11, 2025, as Esri is the sole source provider of all U.S. domestic Enterprise Agreements. Esri products are provided with a special grant to copy and deploy specified quantities of capped items and unlimited quantities of items without a cap.
The Terms of the Master Agreement limit Esri’s liability to the fees paid by County during the 12 months prior to the claim. The limitation of liability does not apply to Esri’s indemnification obligations, its gross negligence, and willful misconduct.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
Failure to approve this Agreement will significantly limit the GIS team’s ability to advance and modernize the County’s geospatial technology infrastructure.