Macomb County committees voted to advance several technology purchases and maintenance agreements to the full Board of Commissioners, including an upgrade to the county phone system, an annual VMware maintenance renewal and replacement of endpoint devices that are not compatible with Windows 11.

Jacob (IT staff who presented the items) told commissioners the phone system is on “version 14” and must be upgraded to version 15 to receive support and security updates; People Driven Technology (the county’s IT partner) will perform the work. Jacob said there are roughly 2,300 devices on the voice system that will be affected. The budget amendment for the VoIP work is $52,255.96.

The committee also moved a Trace3 VMware annual maintenance agreement for $225,486.24. Jacob clarified that the VMware maintenance covers VMware licenses and management of virtual servers but does not include Microsoft operating system licenses, which are handled separately under a Microsoft agreement.

Separately, an endpoint replacement package was advanced for $174,893.95 to replace devices that cannot run Windows 11, including about 25 mobile data computers (in‑car MDCs), roughly 60 desktop PCs and a few tablets. Jacob said the county is replacing these from capital improvement funds.

Other IT items moved to full board included a previously authorized interface cost increase with Carpel Solutions of $6,000 on a component of an earlier $84,000 interface (the committee was told the increase exceeded the 5% threshold and required committee action). A purchase of HP and Dell endpoint devices and tablets was advanced as part of the Windows 11 compatibility work.

Each IT item was forwarded to the full board for final approval; committee votes on the items were unanimous.