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IT director outlines $14.3M technology budget, warns of lost federal cybersecurity sensor
Summary
IT Director Adam Lortz presented a $14.3 million IT budget, described rising licensing and equipment costs, plans for web and AI initiatives, and said the county’s federal ALBERT cyber sensor will be returned, removing a free external monitoring layer.
Information Technology Director Adam Lortz told the Benton County Budget Committee that the IT department’s current-service-level budget is $14,300,000 and that, after proposed reductions and reclassifications, the department’s proposed budget would be roughly 13.7% above the 2023–25 adopted level.
Lortz emphasized that a growing share of the IT budget covers recurring software licensing, backup and archive services, and equipment-replacement reserves. He described a two-part structure in IT — operations (systems, network, service desk) and an innovations team focusing on business process improvements and new service rollouts including Microsoft Teams and AI tools — and he highlighted work to rebuild the county website on WordPress and to enable online payments and customer account functionality.
Cybersecurity and federal monitoring
Lortz told the committee the county has relied on a free federal monitoring sensor known as ALBERT, hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and said he had recently been notified that the federal agency will reclaim that sensor. “They would be taking back the equipment,” he said, adding that the department has prepared other monitoring and contractual protections but that the county will lose that additional federal layer of monitoring.
Other details
- Staffing and reclassifications: IT employs 21 FTE. The budget includes two reclassifications (service-desk supervisor and a network administrator reclass) and a request the department characterized as necessary to match current workloads and security management needs.
- Equipment replacement policy: Lortz described a four‑year schedule for desktop replacements and a six- to eight-year schedule for infrastructure, noting that for this biennium some infrastructure replacement intervals are extended to 10 years to reduce short-term capital demand. He said the county’s equipment ordering cadence (biannual) may face upward price pressure because of tariffs and the need for higher-powered devices to support modern security features.
- GIS funding drop: Lortz said GIS recording-fee revenue has fallen sharply from a recent peak and that the county is exploring modest fee adjustments with the county clerk to recover an estimated additional $32,000 annually.
- AI and digital services: IT has joined a Gov AI Coalition and is preparing an internal AI policy and training plans; Lortz described aims to deploy citizen accounts, electronic forms and payment functionality on the county website by year’s end.
Committee questions focused on replacement schedules, disaster recovery and whether backups are off-site and cloud-based; Lortz said critical data are stored in geographically remote data centers and restoration timelines vary by scenario. No formal votes were taken during the presentation.
