Board approves emergency server replacement after IT review flags vulnerabilities

DeWitt County Board members approved replacing a county records server that staff said is at risk of imminent failure and heard a committee briefing about wider network and policy vulnerabilities.

The board approved a motion to replace the county’s NorthTech/EmergeTech server to preserve three terabytes of historical data and police records that would be difficult to recover if the server failed. County staff said earlier quotes exceeded $20,000 but that they reduced the purchase to a lower-cost configuration; the meeting transcript references a final figure of about $17,003.74 (the precise contract document was not included in the transcript).

At a separate Compliance and Technology Committee meeting, Terry Loveless from Hart Technologies told board members the county’s network contains aging servers and a daisy-chain switch configuration that creates downstream points of failure. Committee members said Hart recommended adopting cyber policies—Hart provided sample policies from the Illinois County Risk Management Trust (ICRMT)—and prioritizing equipment upgrades to reduce vulnerability and improve failover capability.

Why it matters: County staff and committee members emphasized that the server stores public-safety records, police reports, and other documents; a full failure would complicate responses to records requests and ongoing operations.

What’s next: The county will proceed with the server replacement and staff said additional hardware and policy upgrades will be scheduled and budgeted in subsequent cycles. The county plans follow-up committee meetings to prioritize cybersecurity policies and larger infrastructure investments.