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IT asks committee for technician hire, lifecycle replacements, copier and phone consolidations
Summary
City IT staff asked the Finance Committee to add a PC network technician, fund lifecycle replacement for monitors/desktops/laptops, allocate $10,000 for secure data destruction, pay ongoing data-center UPS battery maintenance, consolidate most cell-phone billing under IT (Verizon) and absorb copier rental and per‑click costs.
Mister Sims, an IT staff member, presented the department's capital and operating requests to the Finance Committee at the Sept. 18 special meeting, asking for staff and equipment to support citywide IT operations and document management.
Sims said the department seeks to add one PC network technician as a frontline help-desk person so the existing senior staff can focus on infrastructure work. “This will be our frontline person,” Sims said.
Sims listed several line items: $10,000 for secure data-destruction services for retired hard drives; $5,000 for monitors to support desktop lifecycle replacement; funds for desktop and laptop replacements on roughly a five-year lifecycle; and an allocation to replace aging network switches and access points across the city.
On the city’s copier contract, Sims said the $70,000 figure covers copier rental fees, per‑click printing costs and maintenance for the copiers that IT will now manage; the library retains some standalone printers. When asked whether consolidating copier contracts would yield better pricing, Sims replied the copiers were largely already on a single contract and that overall pricing moved only slightly because of volume and equipment choices.
Sims said the IT budget will also absorb the majority of the city’s Verizon cell-phone bills; a small number of first responders remain on AT&T FirstNet. He noted the department will take ownership of the city’s Laserfiche document-management software and discontinue most use of Iron Mountain for physical archives and records storage.
Sims described routine infrastructure costs such as periodic UPS battery replacements in the police data center and emphasized that monitor replacement and lifecycle funding is ongoing: “So monitors actually move relatively quickly,” he said. He said IT has a rolling device list that refreshes annually and that the department expects to repeat some replacement costs in future budgets until the city is on a steady five-year cycle.
Discussion and next steps: committee members asked about pricing, contract consolidation and which devices remain under department control; Sims said IT will provide updated lists and estimates once the budget is approved and that this package is a request for inclusion in the coming budget hearings. No final approvals were recorded at the Sept. 18 meeting.
Ending: The IT requests will be considered as part of the city’s upcoming budget hearings; staff will return with final quotes and an updated lifecycle list during the budget process.
