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Polk County expands IT modernization, adds disaster recovery and AI monitoring
Summary
County IT staff described a year of system upgrades: a new website, countywide Microsoft 365 rollout, DocuSign, consolidated servers, new firewalls, redundant circuits, a disaster recovery platform, AI-driven security monitoring, a password manager, and new interactive data dashboards built by a newly hired analyst.
Polk County’s information technology team reported progress on a multi-pronged modernization and cybersecurity effort at the board meeting.
Scott Good, the county’s information-technology director, summarized recent work: a redesigned county website, a complete rollout of Microsoft 365 to county departments, DocuSign implementation, server consolidation and reduced on-premises footprint, and automation of online forms and approval workflows. Staff said the changes standardize systems across departments and reduce routine support needs.
On security, county IT said it had replaced firewalls and implemented redundant hardware and circuits to reduce the risk of a single-point failure. County staff described a new disaster-recovery platform intended to allow core systems to operate even if physical sites are lost, and a layered security program that includes malware scanning, denial-of-service testing, and artificial-intelligence monitoring tied to an operations center to provide 24/7 alerts and automated responses.
IT also implemented a county-wide password manager to replace insecure password spreadsheets, and reported an internal shift to a mix of on-premises and cloud hosting — described as about 75% local servers and 25% cloud — with an ongoing assessment of what to migrate.
The county hired a new data analyst, Abigail Paulson, to build interactive, anonymized dashboards across departments. IT reported completion of about 4,008 work orders this year with a 97% service-level achievement, down from higher volumes in prior years; staff attributed declines in routine work orders to standardization and staff training.
Supervisors asked whether security operations were in-house or outsourced; staff said the program is a mix of internal capacity with third-party complements and that the county is increasing in-house capability while retaining vendor support.
