Bourbon County commissioners voted to proceed with a two-part information-technology engagement with Stronghold, approving a one-time infrastructure project (version 5) and a separate interim managed-services contract (version 2).

The vote follows a multi-hour discussion of Stronghold’s scope, which county staff said includes mapping and reorganizing wiring, replacing outdated equipment, creating separate network lanes for the sheriff’s office, improving firewall rules, documenting cabling and fiber, and standardizing endpoints across county buildings. Commissioners and staff said the project aims to make county systems more secure and easier for any vendor to support going forward.

County technology staff described Version 5 as a one-time cleanup and upgrade that will inventory and replace outdated hardware, reconfigure networks into VLANs by department, and document fiber and wireless maps. Managed Services Version 2 would provide ongoing vCIO and day-to-day monitoring and support. Presentations emphasized that the sheriff’s traffic would be separated into a dedicated, monitored lane to preserve law‑enforcement system privacy and performance.

Commissioners pressed for clarity on legal jurisdiction and contract language; county counsel requested Kansas law be specified as controlling in the contract documents rather than Missouri law. Staff said Stronghold agreed to that change.

The board approved a motion to separate the project and the managed-services agreement and to proceed with Project Version 5 followed by interim managed services until the commissioners and elected officials can meet for a longer-term decision on permanent staffing or contracting. The motion passed. Commissioners said the one-time project is intended to reduce future ongoing costs and to give the county a clear inventory and security baseline.

County staff said recurring managed‑service costs are presented separately from the one-time project cost and that the managed‑service monthly fee would be lower than the cost of a comparable full‑time county IT employee. Staff also said software- and hardware‑replacement needs identified in the project may require additional capital appropriations if specific new devices are recommended.