My city has a budget shortfall of $400,000 and they’re looking at cutting firefighter positions, arts funding, and parks funding to make up the shortfall. They also, incidentally, spent over $400,000 on just Microsoft office licenses last year, which doubled in cost from the previous year. My goal is to fix the budget shortfall, or at least take a big bite out of it, by switching all users who can’t specify what advanced (see: VBA) features they use from MS Office onto LibreOffice, since it provides all the same basic functionality and interoperable file formats. As a stretch goal, I’d love to persuade them to get on Linux, but that might be a bridge too far for most folks at the city.

Does anyone have any advice to help me persuade the city to cut bullshit MS office licenses instead of firefighters? The city does have an IT dept that I’ve considered reaching out to, but I’m worried that they may fight that proposal because:

A. I hear that MS lobbies city IT relentlessly

B. They may not have the capacity to do the switch.

As for Linux, I’d love to get the machines that are W10 dependent switched to Linux, but that feels like a big reach. People tend to have a “NERD!” reaction to Linux, like mentioning tabletop gaming.

  • who@feddit.orgEnglish
    19·
    4 days ago

    If I wanted to do this, I think I would start by getting to know the IT staff. This would:

    • Help me to understand the challenges they face in getting their work done: what’s problematic for them, what’s helpful, what skills they already have, etc. This would eventually guide me in how to approach suggesting changes with minimal friction.
    • Make me a familiar person to them, and allow opportunities to build trust in my skills, knowledge, and judgment. If this is established before I ever suggest a change, it could avoid some of the doubt and resistance that would surely come if a stranger walked up and pushed for changes. I want to be a friend, not a foe.
    • Potentially identify an ally within IT: Someone who might already want to make the switch (perhaps because they’re tired of Microsoft’s BS) or at least agree that it would make sense. An ally on the inside would not only make it easier to get others to seriously consider the change, but also potentially help gather information about how MS Office is currently being used so that I could prepare equivalent LibreOffice workflows for users who need them.

    I suggest taking your time, and saving Linux for later so that it doesn’t create more friction against moving to LibreOffice.

    • bizarroland@fedia.io
      17·
      4 days ago

      I am IT staff and I’ve worked for government in the past.

      No matter how easy you make the swap over, no matter how much money it offers to save, there’s gonna be somebody who has sign off level executive authority who will refuse to change anything, because it means changing something, and they won’t like it.

      Making a company-wide transition from Microsoft to a free version that does exactly the same is not a simple change.

      If you make the change, you’re going to see a huge upswing in the number of support calls. You’re going to see a huge upswing in the number of complaints. You’re going to see downturns in efficiency and productivity as people make the changes, not to mention the fact that administering libreoffice from an organizational standpoint is a completely different beast from administering office.

      I’m not saying that it can’t be done, by any stretch of the imagination.

      I’m saying that the human element is the largest factor in whether or not it would be done, and unless you are already the city administrator or a big to-do inside of the fish pond you find yourself in, you likely do not have the human capital needed to make the transition, regardless of every other benefit.

      If you want to get this done, I would suggest preemptively installing libre office on every single computer in the entire organization and then slowly telling people to use it as the opportunity arises so that three to five years from now there will be enough people who have used it that the transition would not be a huge ordeal.

      Short of that you need to have an executive mandate from on high come in and say, we are not using Microsoft Office anymore, we will use LibreOffice, here are your training hours, go.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.eeOP
      7·
      4 days ago

      Those are great points, it’s almost always better to walk in the light. I think I got too attached to the validity of my idea. I’ll reach out to them and see if someone can have that discussion.

    • conditional_soup@lemm.eeOP
      4·
      4 days ago

      Just wanted to say that I took your advice, and posted an update to this thread. It turns out that moving to LibreOffice would have virtually no benefit in any regard whatever according to the city IT manager. Thanks for the advice!