Hiram staff favor InterDev for IT support, propose BSNA cloud migration and consider Canon copier lease

City staff told the council they plan to begin negotiations with a new IT vendor and migrate certain software to cloud hosting while replacing aging copiers.

The matter affects ongoing city operations, cybersecurity, backups for police video, and recurring technology costs.

Jody, a city staff member presenting the item, said the city ran a request for qualifications for IT firms and decided to begin discussions with InterDev, which staff described as having a strong Georgia municipal footprint. Jody said InterDev’s proposed one-time onboarding fee is $17,245 and the proposed monthly cost is $19,593, a package that includes enhanced cybersecurity and a Datto appliance backup for WatchGuard police video. “The price that we got from them after sitting down to negotiate with them, came up with a 1 time onboarding fee of $17,245,” Jody said. He added the proposed monthly recurring charges are lower than current costs.

Jody also explained InterDev prefers clients to own equipment rather than lease it; that would require replacing or buying down existing leased PCs. “INTERDEP does not do leases. They prefer us to own the equipment. And then, they maintain it for us,” Jody said.

Council members discussed the operational tradeoffs and budget implications. Staff said the onboarding fee and equipment changes will require an upfront investment but might reduce monthly recurring charges over time. The recommendation was to proceed with discussions and to roll the proposal into upcoming budget deliberations.

On office equipment, Johnny, a staff member, presented a Canon USA lease proposal for two central copiers at a quoted price point in the packet. He said Canon provided GSA/Sourcewell pricing and offered a per-sheet pay model rather than a preset copy block. “Canon USA actually came out, with the GSA, pricing, which is the state of Georgia contract pricing and Sourcewell and came in with $375.66 That’s for 2 copiers,” Johnny said. Staff told the council the budget includes replacement copiers and that monthly usage varies but is around several thousand copies across departments, with administration and police regular users.

Staff also presented a migration plan from an older server-based financial package (BSNA) to a cloud-hosted version. Jody said the new cloud service is a newer, more user-friendly platform and will store data off-site with vendor backups. Council members asked about record retention and how older agendas and packets are archived and accessed; staff said permanent records and public records requests remain possible and that adding years of archived agendas to the public portal is feasible but will affect site performance.

No formal award or contract was approved during the work session; staff said they will continue negotiations with InterDev, prepare budget numbers for council review, and return with any contract recommendations in a future meeting.