Killeen exploring new fire station, resource planning system

With $8.25 million in excess revenue in the current budget year, the city of Killeen is exploring two new capital programs.

The first program, which would create a new fire station in south-central Killeen, addresses what Killeen Fire Department Chief Jim Kubinski called a “service hole.”

The proposed station is separate from the $11.9 million fire training and emergency management center approved via American Rescue Plan Act funding in late 2021.

Once the station is constructed, Kubinski is hopeful it will reduce service response times, potentially making the difference between life and death.

The chief also plans to redistribute the KFD’s emergency service vehicles and fire apparati, hopefully lightening the load on heavily impacted units.

The station is expected to cost approximately $5.7 million, though Kubinski said he is hopeful that figure will be offset by a series of grants.

The second program under consideration is a complete overhaul of the city’s billing and salary system, which Killeen Executive Director of Finance Jonathan Locke said “has not kept up with the times.”

The city has used CenterSquare, an enterprise resource planning system to handle salary record-keeping and payments since 1999; Locke said Tuesday that CenterSquare has since changed hands multiple times and now has a poor customer rating and similar customer service.

Killeen paid approximately $1.2 million for the program when it was adopted, and has since expanded the program’s services with $400,000 in additional modules.

The new program would cost approximately $4 million and would be phased in over time to allow the city to test and adjust to the program. Locke is currently requesting $2.5 million, which would cover payroll services, invoice management and purchasing processes, as well as a host of other integral systems. If all goes well, another $1.5 million will be requested at a later date and would cover utility collections.

During Tuesday’s Killeen City Council workshop meeting, the council was receptive to both programs, though Councilman Ken Wilkerson questioned whether updating the city’s enterprise resource planning system was necessarily a greater priority than the multitude of other capital improvement projects, saying that he didn’t want to “jump the gun.”

“The fire station itself, I’m OK with it; the (enterprise resource planning) system — to me it sounds like a nice-to-have thing, not a necessary thing,” he said. “The fire station’s OK, but there’s stuff that’s been sitting in CIP (capital improvement projects) for literally almost five years or so.”

Funds in excess of the city’s general budget are moved into the capital improvement fund, per city regulations. According to Locke, a majority of the excess funds this year came from an increase in sales tax revenue, as well as grants received.

The City Council unanimously approved a motion of direction for staff to complete the set of proposals and return at a later date for final consideration.