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Clark County IT director outlines security push, budget pressures and device lifecycle plan
Summary
IT Director Mike Sprinkle told the Clark County Council the department is rolling out ongoing security training, conducting an inventory assessment, and managing tight budgets tied to enterprise software and network replacement needs.
Mike Sprinkle, Clark County IT director, told the county council during a final work session that his department supports 64 staff, manages roughly $18.5 million in funds and is preparing a countywide rollout of ongoing cybersecurity training and inventory controls.
Sprinkle said the department is replacing aging network equipment, standardizing technology across departments and beginning a security risk assessment to prioritize limited staff time and budget. "You can give me $5, you can give me $5,000,000, probably give me $5,000,000,000, we can find a way to spend it on security," Sprinkle said, underscoring the trade-offs the county faces between new projects and core security work.
The training platform the county is implementing will deliver short, vignette-style lessons and track participation and risk indicators, Sprinkle said. Councilor Matt Little, who described a security training called Ningio used at his nonprofit, said weekly micro-training helped him spot scams and asked whether Clark County had a similar program. "It's actually a really good way for us to learn what the security threats are," Councilor Little said. Sprinkle told the council the countywide rollout is expected within about a month after piloting it in IT.
Why this matters: county technology underpins core services — from case management used by the sheriff's office to payroll and permitting software — and the department's budget is constrained by long-term contractual obligations. Sprinkle said about $2.3 million of the department's controllable capital is already contractually committed to enterprise systems such as Workday and public-safety records systems, limiting flexibility to cover rising vendor costs.
In practical terms, IT logged more than 15,000 help-desk tickets in the past 12 months and is juggling requests for new tools alongside incident response and routine housekeeping. To address that, the department is implementing work-management software to track projects and provide departments visibility into priorities and existing requests.
Sprinkle described an inventory assessment intended to identify redundant tools and unused licenses, and to set lifecycle schedules for devices. Desktop computers are already on a five-year replacement cycle; the county will adopt a scheduled replacement policy for cell phones as part of the inventory effort. He also described a law-enforcement support team of five employees devoted to the jail and sheriff's office, and said the county is pursuing interlocal agreements to provide technology support and purchasing leverage to smaller cities, naming Ridgefield as an example.
On equipment disposal, Sprinkle said the county wipes drives and uses a contracted recycler that can shred hard drives; in some cases the recycler returns revenue from scrap value. He said security concerns prevent resale of certain network gear because discarded devices can contain details about the county network.
The presentation identified several near-term pressures: year-over-year vendor price increases of 5%–15%; a fund (the 5090 budget) that covers server, network and cybersecurity needs and is under strain; and an earlier shortfall that left the county collecting about 50% of the amounts needed for network replacement. Sprinkle said one-time ARPA funding helped replace network equipment previously but that ongoing increases in vendor costs continue to erode purchasing power.
No formal votes or directives were recorded during the presentation. Council members asked questions about the timing and scope of training, device-replacement schedules and secure disposal; Sprinkle said the IT team is finalizing the inventory and rollout plans and expects to present schedules as they are developed.
The county's IT priorities for the next two years, he said, focus on supporting other county departments, protecting data and improving reliability. The council did not take formal action at the session; staff will proceed with the inventory, the security risk assessments and the training rollout and report back as those efforts advance.
