Williamson County Commissioners Court on Oct. 21 approved a package of contracts to replace the county’s longtime Oracle system with a consolidated enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, Workday, and related implementation services.

County officials said the project will affect finance, human resources, payroll, benefits and many day-to-day processes across all departments. The court approved the implementation contracts (items 33–37 on the agenda) by a 5-0 vote.

County Technology Services Director Richard Semple and County Auditor Julie Kiley told the court the county has used Oracle since 1998 and that integrating multiple stand-alone systems has become inefficient. Semple said the plan is to consolidate systems — moving functions currently performed by Oracle, Questica, NeoGov and several other add-on systems — into Workday. He said the county will keep Kronos, Telestaff and Bonfire for those specific functions.

Semple said the county selected Barry Dunn for project management, Workday as the ERP provider, AVAP as the Workday implementer and GTS for data archiving and transformation. The team described an implementation schedule with a kickoff next month and a targeted go-live in January 2027. Semple emphasized this will be a multi-year, countywide change that requires extensive training and communication.

Members of the public asked about costs, the list of systems that will be decommissioned and data security. One public commenter asked the county to provide a clear list of which existing systems will be replaced and the startup versus ongoing costs. Judge Snell and other commissioners asked staff to prepare that list and return it to the court; Auditor Kiley agreed to provide a breakdown of systems and annual costs.

On security, Semple said county cybersecurity staff performed a thorough review of Workday’s controls and were “very pleased” with the vendor’s security posture. Semple said some county data is already public and some is not, and the county will use multiple technical and human controls — including outside security audits and manual transfer checks — to reduce risk.

Commissioners framed the vote as necessary because Oracle is no longer supported in a way that meets county needs. Commissioner Cook noted the county has pushed the current system “as far as it will go,” and court members cited the need for up-to-date interfaces with external agencies.

The motion to approve the contracts was made and seconded from the bench and passed unanimously. Commissioners and staff asked departments to remain flexible during the transition and pledged to provide regular updates during the build and training phases.

The court did not provide a detailed line-item price in the meeting presentation; commissioners asked for a subsequent staff report detailing the annual maintenance and the list of systems that will be removed or consolidated.