City IT staff told the High Springs City Commission at a budget workshop that new cybersecurity rules and everyday operational needs are shaping the department’s budget request and a planned capital purchase.

The presentation, given by Eric (IT staff), said the department supports the city’s internal users, manages roughly 74 workstations, 16 servers and about 85 network devices, and works with about 35 partner agencies and vendors. “Last calendar year, we resolved about 1,392 [tickets],” Eric said. “Our average response time on those, across all of them was 18 minutes.”

Eric explained why cybersecurity and records requirements drive much of the work and expense: Florida Statute 119 (public records), PCI requirements for credit-card acceptance, HIPAA for some fire-department health records, CJIS for criminal justice systems, and Florida Statute 282, the recent state cybersecurity initiative for municipalities under 25,000. He noted parts of cyber-related contracts and insurance are exempt from public disclosure under the statutes. The presentation said IT also manages Microsoft licensing and shared internet services for multiple downtown buildings.

On costs and recent changes, Eric said professional-services expenses in the IT budget are about $60,000 lower than last year, and that some wireless and software costs were reallocated to individual departments so those divisions show their true cost. He said renegotiation with Windstream should reduce monthly internet costs by about $800 when the first revised bills arrive. Eric also identified a typographical error in the draft—an email-expense line should be $10,000, with an offset elsewhere—saying the overall budget total is unchanged.

Eric described a recent behind-the-scenes savings tied to the city’s advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). When the billing vendor recommended an expensive cloud migration (described as roughly a six-figure one‑time cost and about $50,000 annually), IT wrote an in-house integration for roughly $10,000 and kept the city on its owned billing software. Eric said that decision “saved us about $350,000 over 5 years.”

On capital needs, Eric said the department is proposing to buy an additional server to reduce the city’s recovery time objective (RTO) and improve how quickly systems can be restored after a hardware failure. He explained the difference between RTO (how quickly systems are brought back online) and RPO (the point in time to which data is restored), and said the city’s backups currently permit restores to about an hour earlier for many systems.

Commissioners asked questions about year-over-year changes and operational details. One commissioner asked how the total compared with last year; Eric confirmed the budget is “a lot less” and reiterated the $60,000 professional‑services reduction and the reallocation of wireless and software costs. Another commissioner praised IT staff and noted the city’s use of a vendor based in High Springs.

Eric closed by offering to help other departments with revenue-generation ideas tied to social media and city video, and by offering to assist a commissioner with a computer problem after the meeting. No formal action or vote on the IT budget occurred at the workshop.

Looking ahead, the presentation flagged ongoing items for follow-up: anticipated Windstream billing adjustments, finalization of the corrected email‑expense line item, and the capital server procurement to reduce RTO.