County IT and central services request added staff to support new buildings, cybersecurity and rising service demand
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Summary
Douglas County IT and central services described multiple staffing needs tied to new facility builds, cybersecurity testing, expanded online meeting and court demands, and high IT support-ticket loads; staff requested additional FTEs and a part-time administrative hire to free technical staff.
Douglas County information-technology and central services leaders told commissioners July 10 that the county needs added technical staff to support ongoing construction, new facilities and rising operational demands.
Darla Jones, director of IT, said the county’s IT staff-to-user ratio is well below industry guidance — she cited a common best-practice ratio of roughly one IT analyst to 25 users and said the county currently operates at about one to 100. Jones said the department handles a growing set of services including email and device support, network configuration, telephone systems, printers, cybersecurity testing (penetration testing), document-management systems and public-meeting audio-visual support. IT staff described 300 help-desk tickets per month and said additional engineering capacity is needed to configure and maintain the network closets and wireless infrastructure required for the Justice and Law Enforcement (JLE) facility and the Public Safety (PSP) project.
IT asked for a mix of additional FTEs: a 0.5 FTE administrative specialist to take routine administrative duties off a senior systems administrator, a full-time IT analyst/engineer to assist with the JLE/PSP buildouts and ongoing infrastructure needs, and other developer and cybersecurity support positions noted in departmental supplemental materials. IT staff and sheriff’s IT staff described collaborative work on shared systems including Spillman (public safety/case software) and camera and badge-access unification to reduce costs by using one countywide solution.
Central services staff also said they planned to reassign or add a communications position tied to the Senior Resource Center transition to a county department; the county communications hire would expand from 10 hours per week of SRC-only social-media support to a broader countywide communications role. Commissioners were told the communications hire would help with crisis messaging (building closures, fires, cybersecurity events) and that the county currently lacks a trained backup when the communications director is out.
No formal budget action was taken at the hearing; commissioners asked for supplemental materials including IT ticket metrics, response-time goals, and the proposed job descriptions and ongoing cost estimates for the requested positions.
Ending: Staff agreed to provide commissioners with help-desk statistics, staffing-ratio comparisons and a timeline for onboarding and supporting the JLE and PSP systems before deliberations.
