Elkhart County OKs IT staffing plan, including cybersecurity roles, to support 200+ applications

The Elkhart County Board of Commissioners approved a multi‑item Information Technology staffing plan that adds several IT positions, including cybersecurity roles, and funds consultant support to consolidate and support county applications and systems.

Jeff Spires of Motion Consulting, presented the staffing and inventory assessment, saying the county supports more than 200 software applications and a substantial physical and network footprint. “We are giving you what I think is a minimum staffing level. And when I say minimum, adequate. It gets the job done,” Spires said.

The presentation listed the county’s inventory as more than 200 applications, roughly 101 servers and SAN cores, 47 switch stacks, 30 departments/facilities, and about 435 copiers and printers; county staff said the objective is to pare application count by roughly 25%–40% over time. Commissioners were also told the staffing request affected the general fund to the tune of about $726,000 compared with last year’s budget decisions that increased contracting and reduced in‑house head count; county staff clarified the net request represents three new FTEs because four positions had been previously contracted in.

The plan includes two cybersecurity roles (cybersecurity analyst and cybersecurity engineer) and other positions spread across application support, network and security. County leaders emphasized that continuous monitoring requires more than one staffer: “You need eyes on those systems at all times,” a county IT presenter said, arguing a single dedicated cybersecurity hire would present operational risk.

Commissioners also discussed longer‑term projects such as replacing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems; officials estimated such replacements could take two to three years, while smaller consolidation steps and outsourcing of specific security platforms could be completed in months. The county administrator and consultants said a vendor assessment tool will be provided to commissioners to standardize future technology requests and cost assessments.

The board voted to approve items 1 through 10 of the IT staffing package in a single motion; the vote was recorded as unanimous by voice.

Ending County leaders said the plan is intended to right‑size IT support, reduce long‑term contractor costs and improve incident response. Implementation will depend on hiring qualified candidates and continued consultant support.