Lawson Software Inc. has won a $5 million contract from the North Central Texas Council of Governments to provide enterprise resource planning solutions, the company announced this week.

Lawson of St. Paul, Minn., will provide project management as well as implementation and training services for the financials, procurement, human resources, reporting, and budgeting and planning suites.

The ERP solutions will be deployed for the cities of Arlington, Carrolton and Grand Prairie. The three cities, which are council members, decided to purchase and share the same business software, Lawson said.

The project is scheduled to go live January 2006. The company’s partner on the project is Answerthink Inc. of Miami.

Based in Arlington, Texas, the council is a voluntary association of government agencies that helps its members plan for common needs, cooperate for mutual benefit and coordinated regional development. It covers a 16-county area surrounding Dallas and Forth Worth.

Lawson offers business applications software and consulting services to the health care, retail, government and education, banking, and insurance sectors. The company has more than 1,500 employees and annual sales of $363.6 million, according to Hoover’s Online of Austin, Texas.