Washington County IT presents website redesign, new payment features and annual cybersecurity report

Washington County IT staff told the county’s IT committee they will begin a CivicPlus-led website redesign after the first quarter, add integrated payment functionality for applications and other services, and continue steady project work and ticketing support.

The cybersecurity officer, Ryan, presented the department’s annual report covering monitoring, phishing simulations, training and outreach. “Our average for the year was 2.8%,” Ryan said of the simulated phishing click-rate, a figure he said was lower than comparable government users. He also reported a 92% completion rate for annual cybersecurity training last year and encouraged ongoing reporting of suspected phishing messages so IT can block them.

IT staff said the CivicPlus redesign will be run by the vendor with an internal programmer assigned as project lead; the county plans cross-departmental content reviews with department heads after the budget year opens. New payment options on the site will let applicants pay fees – for example, civil service exam applications – using card payments passed through to users as fees. Ticketing work for 2024 was summarized as roughly half maintenance/upgrades and half unscheduled problem tickets. Staff said they push Microsoft and third‑party patches weekly and use a monitored ticketing system to log incidents and workforce time.

Ryan described the county’s defensive incident monitoring arrangement and monthly incident history; he said October had the highest month for potential investigations in 2024, and that a third‑party service reviews logs 24/7 and generates alerts that become internal tickets. He said Washington County now has a lower phishing‑prone average (2.8% click rate) than the government industry average the county compares to (4.3%). “If you give me one that’s real and I review it, I’m able to go block that,” Ryan said of posted spam/phishing reports.

Staff discussed outreach to towns and villages about shared IT services. IT said it plans to begin offering system reviews and optional services to towns after Q1; towns would pay prorated software and hourly service fees. If all 17 towns elected county IT services, staff said they would likely need to expand personnel; if uptake is smaller the current staffing would likely be sufficient. The county also has a limited ARPA/other funding pipeline for cyber and infrastructure support and said it is rolling in New York State shared services where possible.

On ticketing, staff said there is no easy automatic way to separate “problem” tickets from maintenance or scheduled upgrades; many tickets are password resets, printing issues or hardware failures. Staff estimated roughly a 50/50 split between problem tickets and planned/scheduled work.

The committee and staff discussed Starlink and fixed wireless uptake in remote areas and reimbursement programs for residents. IT noted an ARPA‑funded pilot to reimburse equipment purchase for unserved addresses and that the county will follow the state broadband and ConnectALL grant processes.

The committee heard the report without further action and adjourned.