Cibolo staff present five‑year technology master plan; consultants recommend staffing, redundancy and cloud strategy

City staff and outside consultants presented a five‑year strategic technology master plan at the March 25 Cibolo City Council meeting, laying out recommended investments in cybersecurity, staffing and cloud‑first modernization.

Tracy Beekman, who introduced the study, said the city engaged Skene’s consulting to assess current systems, interview departments and produce a prioritized plan. Consultant Stephen Graves of Skene’s said the assessment identified a number of operational and security gaps alongside several strengths: staff engagement and some recent infrastructure upgrades. Key consultant recommendations included hiring a dedicated network administrator and an application specialist, adding two PC technicians over time, and funding a multi‑year program to move business systems to enterprise cloud‑based solutions (ERP) to reduce duplicate data handling and improve efficiency.

Skene’s recommended technical changes included a second internet point of presence (different carrier) to reduce single‑point failure risk, an offsite disaster‑recovery or backup data center, improved data‑center environmental monitoring and controls, and use of a security operations center (SOC) service to monitor suspicious activity 24/7. The consultants said an up‑to‑date IT‑driven continuity of operations (COOP) plan is essential and advised formalizing technology governance (regular meetings between IT and department leaders) and updated IT policies.

Council members asked about cost‑sharing, outsourcing options and cloud providers; Graves said many municipal systems are moving to cloud platforms (Microsoft Azure, AWS, or vendor‑selected clouds) and that migration decisions are typically tied to the software vendor selected for enterprise modules. Council members also asked for comparisons to IT staffing in similarly sized cities; Graves said that while Cibolo’s IT team has handled a broad workload, the recommended positions would align the city’s capability with peers and with the security posture needed to support growth.

Council did not take action on procuring staff or systems at the March 25 meeting but asked staff to return with prioritized initiatives and implementation timing at the April strategic workshop and to identify near‑term items to include in the FY26 budget process.