Matt Bunko, Gallatin County chief information officer, asked the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday to approve funding to cover maintenance, licensing and subscription increases in the county’s enterprise IT budget and to support site-upgrade projects including a website refresh and building digital signage.

Bunko said subscription and maintenance costs account for the largest share of the request and that those costs keep rising year to year as software moves from perpetual licenses to subscription models. “Microsoft, our collaboration tools, they went up 7% alone this year,” he said. Bunko said his office could reduce the startup ask by $211,000 by deferring about 85% of scheduled computer replacements to the next fiscal year and by cutting discretionary cooperative purchases, but that doing so would lengthen the useful life of 6–7-year-old machines and put additional strain on staff.

The CIO proposed a 12,000 one-time website refresh with roughly $3,473 in modest ongoing hosting or subscription fees; he said the vendor’s estimate might fall to $8,000 if the county uses a template instead of a full redesign. Digital signage for wayfinding and public information was presented as a $10,000 one-time purchase and a roughly $120-per-year subscription for the signage control software. Bunko said signage could be installed in the courthouse and the justice center and that the hardware would be a one-time acquisition.

Commissioners pressed Bunko on the consequences of deferring computer replacements and on whether cooperative purchasing discounts could be relied on when orders are placed later; Bunko said equipment bought via cooperatives today can cost roughly half the proposed list price but that he could not guarantee cooperative pricing months from now. He also described shorter-term, lower-cost security projects — multifactor authentication for VPNs, for example — that could be implemented in-house for roughly $3,000.

The commission moved to approve a mix of funding for IT: a portion in ongoing taxes to cover recurring subscription costs and a larger one-time cash component to cover immediate needs while preserving flexibility to scrutinize subscriptions and replacement schedules midyear.

Bunko said the strategy of splitting funding between one-time cash and ongoing taxes would let the county manage near-term cash needs while forcing clarity about multi-year subscription commitments and hardware replacement cycles. “We can push $211,000 to next fiscal year or split it over the next two fiscal years,” he said. Commissioners instructed staff to work toward clearer line-item reporting for future budgets to reduce midyear surprises.

The board approved the CIO’s revised funding package with a blend of one-time and ongoing support and directed staff to return if replacements or contracts prove more costly than expected.