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Ridgecrest IT plans firewall and network upgrades and an XDR migration as long‑time staff member prepares to depart
Summary
IT staff described a multi‑phase firewall, networking and logging refresh, upgrades to endpoint security (XDR), Microsoft 365 licensing review, and a staffing transition as a senior IT team member signaled his likely departure.
City IT staff presented infrastructure and cybersecurity projects for FY26, and the department’s lead said he expects this budget season will likely be his last with the city.
The presentation described a two‑phase refresh of the city’s firewalls and core switching, completed fiber upgrades to a higher‑capacity backbone, and redundant ISP and firewall configurations intended to eliminate single points of failure. Staff said logging and detection improvements and segmentation work are underway to increase the city’s ability to detect and contain cyber incidents.
IT staff said the city will pursue an endpoint‑security migration from an older product to a modern extended detection and response (XDR) platform and will review Microsoft 365 licensing and migration options as contracts come due. City IT noted the operational complexity of being a mid‑sized municipal IT shop and highlighted continued emphasis on identity and access management for criminal‑justice information systems.
The presenter identified recruitment and succession as an immediate operational issue. A senior IT staffer who addressed the council said he expects to step away in the coming months and noted the need to document institutional knowledge and speed new‑hire onboarding in a technical environment that supports police CJIS computing, the wastewater SCADA environment and other city systems.
Staff also described plans to finish a low‑voltage rewire in multiple municipal facilities, refresh aging copiers and continue membership in peer municipal IT networks for shared problem solving.
City Manager and council praised the department’s progress and asked staff to return with any policy or staffing requests needed to maintain resilience during the transition.
