City of Bloomington to Become Supporter of Kuali Foundation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 13, 2011

For more information, please contact:
Rick Dietz, Director of Information & Technology Services, City of Bloomington, 812.349.3485, [mailto:dietzr@bloomington.in.gov]
Jennifer Foutty, Executive Director, Kuali Foundation, 812.345.3948, [mailto:jfoutty@kuali.org]
Jared Schlemmer, Communications Director, City of Bloomington, 812.349.3406, [mailto:schlemmj@bloomington.in.gov]

Bloomington IN - Mayor Mark Kruzan and the City of Bloomington have announced an agreement with the Kuali Foundation to become a "Supporter" of Kuali People Management for the Enterprise.

The Kuali Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by Indiana University and other universities that coordinates efforts to sustain and evolve administrative software that meets the needs of all sizes of higher education institutions, from small colleges to large research universities. The Kuali Foundation began in 2004 as a cooperative effort among partners including IU through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an open-source, community-owned, financial system.

"This partnership will allow the City to potentially implement an essential IT system at little cost and give back to our peers in municipal government at the same time," said Kruzan.

Success with joint development of Kuali Financial System has led to additional pooled investment projects, including Kuali Coeus for Research Administration; Kuali Student; Kuali Rice; Kuali Open Library Environment; Kuali Ready; and now Kuali People Management for the Enterprise with coordination by the independent, not-for-profit Kuali Foundation Inc. The software developed by Kuali projects is available, without fee, for anyone to use or modify under the Educational Community License. Given IU's founding role in Kuali, many Kuali staff live and work in Bloomington, making for a natural partnership with the City.

The City's Information & Technology Services (ITS) Department is running a Kuali RICE server and is now actively evaluating Kuali's TIME Module for enterprise-wide time keeping. As a Supporter, the City is participating in beta testing of certain Kuali modules. Although Kuali Foundation Community currently has no official partnerships with government entities, this first step is recognition that Kuali People Management for the Enterprise may offer compelling options for community partnerships beyond the higher education sector.

"In both government and the IT field we have to look to the future," said Rick Dietz, City Information & Technology Services Director. "I believe the Community Source governance model for Open Source software is the future of enterprise software in the public sector. Municipalities are paying thousands of times over for the very same kinds of software that all governments collectively use. Ultimately, that's neither wise, nor financially sustainable. Embracing Kuali's successful existing Community Source software is one way to introduce this approach among municipal governments and ultimately provide greater value to taxpayers."

The Community Source model produces software that is collaboratively conceived, designed, developed and maintained. It is a development model for software maintenance that builds upon Open Source software and creates durable institutional support and maintains continuity by pooling the resources of individuals and institutions with common goals.

For more information about the City's support of Kuali, contact Dietz at 812-360-2905 or [mailto:dietzr@bloomington.in.gov], or Jennifer Foutty, Executive Director of the Kuali Foundation, at 812-345-3948 or [mailto:jfoutty@kuali.org].

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