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IT asks for help‑desk and analyst positions as county systems proliferate; vendor cloud migration to raise annual costs
Summary
IT Director requested a help‑desk technician and an analyst to support a growing set of applications and recent cloud migration requirements; staff warned a vendor‑cloud migration for email filtering will raise annual costs and asked commissioners to approve nonrecurring funds for several software projects.
IT Director Bob Kelly told commissioners that the county’s IT environment has grown from a single server supporting a few systems to a multi‑application environment requiring broader support. Kelly requested two positions — a help‑desk technician to restore quick first‑response service levels and an analyst to provide application support and vendor coordination as departments migrate to web‑based systems.
Kelly explained that early systems were designed primarily for finance and functioned on a single S/400 server; over time departments added specialized, often cloud or hybrid, applications for land‑use, CAD/RMS for public safety, tax modules and recreation management. "I have over a dozen applications, big applications that our departments are dependent upon," Kelly said, and with two staff supporting all those systems IT needs more analyst bandwidth to manage vendor relationships, integrations and rollouts scheduled through July.
Cloud migration costs: Kelly reported an upcoming mandatory migration for the county’s email spam/malware gateway from an on‑prem box to the vendor’s cloud service. The vendor will charge a migration/setup fee and the annual subscription cost will nearly double, but the cloud arrangement reduces bandwidth and on‑prem upkeep. Kelly flagged a nonrecurring IT cost item tied to new positions (hardware, software and peripherals) estimated at roughly $55,000.
Systems for recreation and parks: Kelly also discussed RecTrac (recreation registration) replacement costs that were presented as a nonrecurring line and noted that some gains in citizen services (mobile apps, GIS viewer) have been successful but require sustained analyst support.
Ending: IT will provide additional detail on nonrecurring hardware/software costs associated with new hires and a timeline for the cloud spam gateway migration; commissioners asked finance to treat some items as eligible for fund‑balance one‑time funding if they choose that route.
