Committee recommends IT budget; director outlines network upgrades, phone replacement and digitization plan
Loading...
Summary
The committee recommended the IT personnel and fixed-cost budgets and reviewed the department's five-year capital plan priorities including phone replacement (end-of-service), network and server upgrades, digitization of archives and an annual life-cycle management allocation.
The Administration and Finance Committee on Tuesday recommended approval of the IT department's general administration and fixed-cost budgets and discussed capital priorities that city IT officials said are meant to replace aging infrastructure and support ongoing digitization of municipal records.
IT Director John Ankiewicz told the committee he was promoted to director last September and that the department's near-term priorities are network and server upgrades and completing previously funded E-Rate access-point work at schools. "We're primarily focused on upgrading and replacing our old infrastructure," Ankiewicz said.
Why it matters: The city's network, telephony and application infrastructure support all municipal services. The committee's recommendations advance funding requests that the full council will consider in June.
Key details and discussion
- Personnel and savings: Ankiewicz said the department has nine current staff and two open positions (a network manager and a business systems analyst); he credited finance staff with helping increase the analyst salary to be competitive. He said an inventory and license audit eliminated unnecessary software spending including removing a Smartsheet subscription that produced $22,000 in savings.
- Infrastructure priorities and CIP: Ankiewicz highlighted that the city's phone system has reached end of service; the committee discussed a roughly $200,000 allocation for phone replacement to restore vendor support. The department also wants sustained annual funding for life-cycle management for ongoing license and hardware replacements and an annual digitization allocation to convert paper maps and records into searchable digital files.
- Digitization: The committee discussed a multi-department digitization effort with departments including the City Clerk, Assessing and Planning requesting records conversion; the city plans to centralize requests and allocate funding across several years.
Committee actions
- IT general administration: Committee recommended approval of the IT personnel budget ($806,993) and expenditures budget ($12,500) for a department total of $819,493.
- IT fixed costs: Committee recommended approval of the IT fixed-cost expenditures totaling $926,500.
Both motions were made by Councilor Stott and carried in committee. The IT capital plan will be reviewed again on the June 11 council meeting when funding-source votes occur.
