Western Oregon University officials told the Joint Committee on Information Management and Technology on May 30 that the university provided rapid mutual aid to Central School District after a February 2024 ransomware attack and is proposing a new data center with colocation and an emergency operations center for the Polk County region.

The request matters because the university said the incident exposed how fragile local computer infrastructure can be and illustrated the potential regional benefit of a purpose-built facility that could shelter public agency operations during cyber or physical emergencies.

Evan Source, secretary to the Western Oregon University board of trustees and special assistant to the president, said the district reported it had been locked out of critical systems and network resources. "They were able to go old fashioned analog teaching, after just 2 days," Source said, summarizing the immediate benefit from university assistance. Michael Ellis, Western Oregon University's chief information security officer, told the committee the district was left with "basically 0 infrastructure — 0 servers, 0 internet access" and that university staff and volunteers helped restart teaching functions.

University staff said they deployed mobile internet hotspots to classrooms, repurposed a campus classroom with a detached network to avoid cross-contamination to the university network, and provided printing and internet access so teachers could continue lessons. A group of roughly 20 volunteers from the university ran forensic tools on hundreds of district machines to recover logs and other data needed for recovery work, and outside contractors then began redeploying machines and rebuilding services. Source said the district's buildings were closed to in-person instruction for two days but otherwise were able to continue teaching in alternate, low‑tech formats while systems were rebuilt.

Tom Litterer, Western Oregon University's chief information officer, described the university's current data center as housed in an old elementary school building with recurring temperature and water problems. "We've spent some time mopping water off the floor just in the past few months," Litterer said. He said the university has a proposal on the Higher Education Coordinating (HEC) priority list maintained by the Joint Capital Construction Committee to build a purpose‑built replacement data center. The proposed facility would increase campus capacity, protect institutional data and include colocation space and a flexible emergency operations center that could support public health, weather incidents or cybersecurity events for Monmouth, Independence, Dallas and Polk County.

Committee members voiced support for the idea. Co-chair Representative Nathanson said the mutual‑aid response demonstrated a model other communities might replicate, and Senator Manning called the current campus data center "embarrassing" given its condition and expressed support for funding a replacement. Committee staff later said Western Oregon University had been connected with the Oregon State Data Center and the Oregon Cybersecurity Center of Excellence to explore colocation and partnership options.

The university did not present a final funding request to the committee during the informational presentation. Litterer identified the HEC priority listing (proposal number 4) as the vehicle to seek capital funding. No committee vote or formal committee action to commit state funding occurred during the meeting.