FORT SCOTT, Kan. — Fort Scott city officials on July 2 moved to secure interim IT support and an immediate assessment after the city learned the two people who had administrator access to the city’s systems were no longer employed by the county and the city lacked an off-boarding or fallback plan.

City Manager Brad said the personnel "who had access to all of our systems and networks were suddenly no longer employed, either with county or with us," and that the city did not have an off-boarding process for system administrators. "As far as ... business continuity plan, we're kinda well, we don't have one," he said.

That prompted the city manager to sign an agreement for Stronghold, the vendor currently working with Bourbon County, to perform a network discovery and security assessment for the city and to provide interim IT support while the city develops a longer-term procurement plan. Avion, Stronghold’s chief technical officer, described Stronghold’s approach as 24/7 support with monthly reports and strategic reviews and said the company backs up systems every four hours to both an on-site appliance and Stronghold’s private cloud.

The assessment will inventory devices, listing make, model, serial number, operating system, warranty and patch status, Avion said, and Stronghold will produce a report the same day or within a week with a recommended roadmap and prioritized fixes. "In a rush, we will have everything by next week," Avion said.

Why it matters: Commissioners expressed concern that the city’s existing arrangement with Bourbon County was vague and did not guarantee business continuity if an administrator lost access. Stronghold told the commission the county has retained Stronghold and that Stronghold can either continue to deliver the same services the county provides or help the city separate—what the vendor called a "Siamese twin" separation—so the city’s infrastructure is logically and physically segregated from the county’s.

Key technical points and next steps

- Separation and equipment: Stronghold recommended logical segregation (VLANs) and additional or replacement network hardware; the vendor said the building currently needs a 48‑port switch to avoid mixing city and county ports and to simplify addressing. "You will need equipment for our side and equipment for their side," Avion said.

- Backups and recovery: Avion said standard practice is backing up every four hours, using an on-site appliance for quick recovery and a private cloud for off-site redundancy. "We bring an appliance on-site ... and then we also back up things to our private cloud," he said.

- Security steps already taken: Stronghold reported disabling privileged accounts and removing the remote-access tool AnyDesk (the transcript shows the free version had been used). The vendor also said it would document privileged access and account changes for both the domain and cloud services.

- Service model and cost drivers: Avion said Stronghold offers continuous 24/7 support and monthly reporting; he said there is typically no travel charge and that standard support has no upcharge, while projects or new equipment purchases would carry additional fees. He noted an example: "If you're paying $3,600 a month, then you're paying $3,600 a month for 24/7 service."

- Timeline and procurement: Commissioners asked Stronghold to provide additional detail for the RFP, especially on business continuity and strategic IT planning. The commission directed City Manager Brad to distribute Stronghold’s assessment to commissioners when available and to release an RFP the following Monday so vendors can bid on longer-term services. Stronghold also said it would attend the city presentation so commissioners could see how the county and city systems interconnect.

What the meeting did not decide

Commissioners discussed empowering the city manager to engage Stronghold for interim services and to proceed with procurement steps, but the transcript records no formal motion or roll-call vote authorizing permanent contract awards; the agreement signed was for an assessment and interim access only. The only recorded formal vote in the transcript was to adjourn the meeting.

Ending

City Manager Brad will distribute Stronghold’s written assessment to commissioners when it is complete and proceed with preparing the RFP; Stronghold expects to produce the assessment quickly and to present findings in a follow-up meeting. The commission adjourned after the items were discussed.