The Yelm Finance Department is seeking an update to its software and a change to an employee title during the next biennium.
City Finance Director Stephanie Nanavich spoke before the Yelm City Council on Oct. 22 to request those changes for 2025 and 2026.
Nanavich and Yelm’s Finance Department seeks to transition from its current BIAS on-site software to the cloud, which would improve information storage and security, along with changing the position title of “utility billing clerk” to “accounting technician” to better suit the department.
Nanavich said the transition to a BIAS cloud would be a one-time expenditure of $26,250 in 2025. She noted that the BIAS software company no longer supports on-site customers, adding it’s moving everyone onto the cloud.
“Because of that, we’re not getting all of the updates. We’re not able to take advantage of anything new they’ve implemented in that software. For example, they’ve added a report writing software to BIAS, which we don’t use because we’re not on the cloud,” Nanavich said. “There’s a lot of features in moving our software to the cloud, things that we just can’t do right now, because it’s on-site.”
She added that the BIAS cloud would be updated three times daily in order to prevent data and information losses.
Nanavich would also like to see the utility billing clerk position transition into an accounting technician position. She believes this change would be helpful to the department as it continues to cross-train its employees.
“I’m not asking for a new FTE — it will be the same FTE, but it’s just an upgrade to the position. That will allow me, for that person, to cross-train into other functions in the finance department,” Nanavich said. “They can learn how to do the accounts payable, accounts receivable, and it also keeps them more engaged with the department. Everybody likes to learn new things.”
The finance director also highlighted some of the department’s accomplishments in 2023 and 2024, including the adoption of a new travel policy, new cash receipt and electronic file transfer policies — both of which comply with Washington state laws. Nanavich noted that the Washington state Auditor’s Office provided guidance for state compliance.
The department also collaborated with Yelm Public Services to improve procurement procedures, Nanavich said. Policies related to procurement will be brought forward to Yelm City Council in 2025.
Yelm’s finance department also selected and implemented ClearGov budgeting software in order to save staff time and provide the community with transparency in budgeting.
“I’m really excited about the transparency piece — when we actually put this budget document online for people to look at and play around with. That will be exciting,” Nanavich said.
Nanavich added that a former employee left the finance department, allowing for two other staff members to be promoted to financial analyst positions — and hired an additional accounting assistant. The department also aims to continue focusing on cross-training employees.
“I have three people that could do accounts payable for us. I only have one person that’s processing payroll, but I do have another person learning how to do the payroll,” Nanavich said. “Another area that we’re trying to cross train is utility billing. I have one person that does utility billing, and I want at least two. Every key operating function within our department, we have to have somebody cross-trained.”
Nanavich added she’d like to conclude the implementation of ClearGov software, adopt policies related to capital assets, theft-sensitive assets and reserve financials.
