City presents IT liaison role, Netgain details network work and accessibility upgrades

Sarah James, the city of Georgetown's IT liaison, presented an overview of the liaison role and recent information-technology work at a special-called Georgetown City Council meeting on May 28, 2025. James said the liaison “is a crucial support staff member to the mayor's office and various departments” and described responsibilities that include project leadership, website and social media publishing and vendor coordination.

James told the council the city's Facebook and YouTube presence has grown substantially under the current approach. “Our Facebook account has achieved 1400% increase in its ability to reach users, with interactions rising by 3700% and link clicks increasing by 1400%,” James said. She also said the city's YouTube channel had 7,181 total views in the last year and 553 subscribers as of April 30, 2025.

The presentation described several underway or planned technology projects. Netgain, the city's managed service provider, is leading an ongoing tenant migration and a number of “critical infrastructure” replacements that James said are scheduled for completion this month or soon after. James said citywide tenant migration and a primary managed-service-provider infrastructure project are near-term priorities, with a later move to return some services to city hall under discussion.

Netgain staff outlined their help-desk and vendor model and stressed the role of the IT liaison as a single point of contact to streamline work. Ken, vice president of sales for Netgain, said the city has benefited from assigning a dedicated liaison: “By putting her in play, she holds us accountable.” Gavin Boggs, manager of Netgain’s rapid-response engineering team, and Tyler Bauman, the on‑site technical lead, described long-term plans and day-to-day operations, including a staffed 24/7 help desk and on-call engineers for critical incidents.

Council members asked for additional details and follow up. Council members requested a citywide inventory of unique software systems; James said she would refer that request to staff and take care of it. Councilman Hampton asked whether any tools currently use artificial intelligence; James said automation is limited to ticket categorization and scheduled automation and that state-level legislation governing AI for local governments is under consideration.

James described two accessibility tools proposed in the upcoming budget: AudioEye — a user-facing accessibility widget that offers high-contrast and text-size controls — and Monsido (which she said may be marketed as Acquia Optimize), a site-scanning tool to find broken links and consistency issues. James said those tools are intended to help the city comply with a federal ruling she cited, published in the Federal Register on April 24, 2024, which she said requires municipalities under 50,000 people to meet Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility requirements by April 26, 2027.

Netgain and James addressed cybersecurity concerns. Netgain staff described live monitoring, automated isolation and backup procedures and said a recent alert was contained and cleared the same day. When asked the council’s question about ransomware protection, Netgain staff said monitoring, automatic isolation and backups keep risk “as low as possible,” and noted an alert was detected and resolved the previous day.

Council members also asked how IT costs are recorded in the budget. Stacy, a finance staff member, said much of the city’s IT spending is recorded under computer hardware and software and that she would assemble a full breakdown across vendors (Netgain, other managed-service providers and service contracts) for council review.

The presentation closed with the mayor thanking IT staff and Netgain for their work and asking staff to return with the requested software inventory and cost breakdowns. The IT liaison and Netgain representatives said they will continue weekly coordination meetings and report further as projects progress.