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Goodyear IT presents annual technology assessment; recommends 3-year laptop cycle, hybrid data-center strategy
Summary
City IT presented findings from a staff survey and an inventory of 67 applications, recommending consolidation of duplicative software, a shift to a three-year laptop replacement cycle, continued hybrid cloud use and an AI data guideline; no formal council action was taken.
Lisa Faison, Goodyear’s chief information officer, told the City Council at its May 5 work session that the IT department’s annual technology assessment will guide the city’s strategic planning and operational priorities.
The assessment, begun in early 2024, surveyed 640 city employees and reviewed 67 software applications to identify duplicative tools, security gaps and opportunities for automation. Faison said the survey produced a 17% response rate — about 109 staff — and an overall satisfaction baseline of 75% that the department will use to measure progress.
The assessment highlighted three near-term priorities: reduce duplicative software, increase systems integration and automation, and classify data to guide safe use of AI. “Technology changes so rapidly that it's necessary for us to be in a continual evaluation,” Faison said. IT staff recommended publishing an AI guideline that limits which data types may be used with AI and soliciting department use cases before deployment.
On hardware, IT recommended shortening laptop life cycles from five years to three years, citing a concentration of hardware service tickets in years four and five. The department reported standardizing device fleets by position and work type reduced costs and downtime; currently 37% of staff have laptops and 63% use desktops. Faison said the city’s goal is to complete 95% of scheduled hardware replacements in the year they are due.
For infrastructure, IT reported a hybrid environment with about 31% of city applications hosted in the cloud and 69% on‑premises. The department recommended continuing a hybrid approach, finishing redundancy between the current data center and City Hall systems, standardizing hardware to reduce space needs, and planning a future off‑site disaster recovery location outside Goodyear to limit downtime in a catastrophic event. “We will assess options such as shared data-center space with partner cities, cloud-hosted solutions, or a dedicated recovery site,” Mike Saildown, deputy CIO, said.
Council members asked questions about cloud costs, security, and how the city evaluates new vendor products. IT said most hosted application costs are included in software renewals and that purchasing requests flow through a centralized procurement review to prevent duplicate purchases. The department said demonstrations and vendor pilots (for example, a scheduled Dell hardware demo) are used to evaluate vendor offerings before purchase.
No motions or votes were taken; IT presented recommendations for incorporation into the city’s strategic planning and said staff will continue annual assessments and follow up with specifics as projects are proposed for budget consideration.
