Dade City’s IT director asked the commission to reclassify his position and add two staff — an information‑security specialist and a systems administrator — to help manage cybersecurity, system administration and citywide software deployments as the municipality grows.

Kevin Towne (IT director) explained the request by noting the city’s expanding number of devices, users and compliance obligations. He said the city receives some cybersecurity tools through the Florida Digital Services Grant but lacks a full‑time staff member to operate and respond to security alerts. "We do have a managed service provider that does some security monitoring for us, but they're monitoring and alerting. So they're gonna tell you the problem. They're not gonna fix it," Towne said.

Towne proposed a structure of director, end‑user support, an information‑security specialist focused on threat monitoring and security awareness training, and a systems administrator to handle server administration, account lifecycle and software deployments. He said the security specialist would handle remediation rather than just flagging issues and would run ongoing user training; the systems administrator would take day‑to‑day server and account tasks off the director’s plate.

When asked which position to cut if the budget is constrained, Towne said he would retain the security specialist and be willing to delay hiring a full systems admin, arguing that many routine IT tasks could be covered by current staff but that security coverage is essential.

No hiring decision was made; the positions were placed in the draft budget for further consideration. Towne said he expects onboarding and workspace allocation may affect whether hires can begin Oct. 1.