Benicia City Council will get a preview Tuesday of the vendor request city staff has prepared for a citywide finance computer software system.

The presentation is for the panel’s review only, Finance Director Karin Schnaider wrote in a report to the Council. No vote is required. But it is the latest step in a long-awaited improvement in Finance Department computing.

The department has expected since 2011 that ONESolution would be a software upgrade that would reduce its dependence on paper and hand-entries of financial data. In addition, employees hoped the upgrade would permit Finance and Human Resources computers to interact.

In January 2014, however, City Manager Brad Kilger told the Finance Committee that ONESolution’s installation was no simple upgrade, and that instead of a $66,000 upgrade the city would need to spend at least $300,000, if not much more, to make the system work with the city’s computers.

Since then, the city has found some interim fixes and overhauled its own expectations for a long-term solution to its finance software shortcomings.

This approach, Kilger told the Finance Committee at the time, also would be expensive. But unlike in 2011, when the new software was viewed as an existing system upgrade available through long-time vendor Sungard, the city would put the project out for bids.

“The request for proposals will determine the cost of replacing the city’s existing accounting software,” Schnaider wrote in her report. “The budget impact will be presented for consideration as part of the Fiscal Year 2015-17 biennial budget process.”

She explained that the computer programming, called Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, is a single, comprehensive software that can be used throughout the city organization, rather than just by the Finance Department.

“The city is looking to purchase a multi-suite product where the various accounting and reporting modules are fully integrated throughout the ERP,” she wrote.

The ERP system is expected to manage resources and information in such modules as general ledger, payroll, utility billing, cash register, accounts receivable, licensing, accounts payable-purchasing-requisitions, various budgetary modules, code enforcement, project and grant management, work orders, bank reconciliation and electronic government operations.

The request for proposals is expected to be released March 16, with proposals due May 1. Finalists would be notified May 22, and they would demonstrate their products during July.

Schnaider wrote that the Council would be asked in August to award a contract, and training of employees on the new system would begin in October and should conclude by June 2016.

In other matters, the Council will be asked to modify its Bureau Veritas contract by $120,000 for continued building official services, including plan reviews and building inspections.

The company, with Bay Area offices in San Francisco and San Ramon, has been providing contractors to Benicia for nine years and specifically has supplied professional services since 2006.

The contract increase was anticipated in the 2014-15 budget, but the contract wasn’t modified to be consistent with that budget.

“This proposed contract revision will bring the contract into conformance with the budget,” interim Community Development Director Dan Marks wrote in a report to the Council.

The Council also will be asked to approve the city’s investments portfolio.

In addition, Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth will advise the Council that Benicia’s water customers are continuing to conserve during the drought.

In fact, in 12 months, compared to the 2013 baseline, the community reduced water consumption by 21.9 percent, and in December, the conservation rate was 31.7 percent, compared to a statewide average of 22.2 percent, Wadsworth reported.

California has been in a drought for the past three years, he wrote the Council, and that has caused state officials as well as those in Benicia to call for a reduction in water use.

Another sign residents needed to conserve was when the State Water Project declined to give Benicia and its other contractors any of the water for which they had contracted. Benicia gets 75 to 80 percent of its water from the SWP.

Wadsworth wrote that so long as the SWP authorizes more than 35 percent of contracted allocations, the city can manage, since it also gets water from multiple other sources.

“The drought remains very serious,” he wrote, explaining that the Department of Water Resources, which has jurisdiction over the State Water Project, said consecutive dry years have meant millions of acre-feet of reservoir space remain empty. Recent rain hasn’t replaced that water, and the water content of the snowpack is 32 percent of normal.

While Wadsworth assured the Council his department is managing the city water supply to minimize the impact of the drought, he recommended that conservation measures continue if Benicia is to anticipate an adequate water supply through 2016.

He also addressed “missing water,” since 26 percent more water is treated than is read by meters, explaining that some of the missing water may escape through leaks but most is suspected “lost” through inaccurate water metering.

Of the city’s 9,600 water meters, more than 60 percent are more than 20 years old, Wadsworth wrote, advising the Council that he soon will ask how the panel wants his department to handle the matter.

Replacing those meters could take up to two years, he wrote.

Meanwhile, Public Works crews repaired 105 leaks last year and in 2015 have found and fixed another eight, he wrote; among those detected last year was a large leak at a private home that squandered 2,200 gallons daily. After the city issued notifications and warnings to the property owner, it shut service off in December 2014. The property owner repaired the leak in January.

Another option under examination is recycling water from the Wastewater Treatment Plant, Wadsworth wrote: A pilot program saved 627,000 gallons and a full-scale operation would save more. Also under consideration is the use of that water, up to 2,000 acre-feet, for cooling purposes at Valero Benicia Refinery, he wrote, which could save more than 20 percent of the city’s water needs. City employees are looking for grants or loans that could underwrite the project, he wrote.

The Council will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in a closed session on legal and personnel matters. The regular meeting starts at 7 Tuesday night in the Council Chamber of City Hall, 250 East L St.