Polk County accepts $80,066 cybersecurity grant; plans $8,657 local match and ongoing costs

Polk County commissioners ratified acceptance of a state and local cybersecurity grant from the Texas Office of the Governor totaling $80,065.83 and authorized using contingency funds to cover the required 10% local match, bringing the project cost to about $88,963.

County IT Director Casey Lowry told the court the award will fund implementation of CrowdStrike Falcon Complete for endpoint detection and Blue Iron Technologies for data backup and rapid recovery. Lowry said the services provide 24/7 threat detection and response, ransomware protection and faster recovery after incidents. “It is a phenomenal tool, and it is the number one in the nation,” Lowry said of the CrowdStrike service after testing it on county equipment.

The county received two vendor proposals with a projected total project cost of $86,572.12, leaving a local match of roughly $8,657.20. The court noted that ongoing annual costs after the grant period would be approximately $60,331.90 for CrowdStrike and $22,092.72 for Blue Iron, a combined future budgetary impact of approximately $82,424.62; the county expects those to replace existing IT services but acknowledged a net long-term budget increase of roughly $70,430.62 as presented by staff.

Commissioners approved the grant acceptance and the immediate procurement plan. The court recorded no dissent; the motion to ratify the grant carried after the motion and second were offered.

Why it matters: County officials said recent hacking and phishing incidents—payroll and account-change scams were cited—have strained IT staff and interrupted operations. Officials described the grants as a way to accelerate deployment of managed detection and response and to reduce staff time spent on incident remediation.

Next steps: Staff will execute the vendor agreements and implement CrowdStrike and Blue Iron; commissioners agreed the long-term budget implications will be addressed in future budget cycles.