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Dawson County IT asks for two new network roles, admin assistant citing surge in help requests and cybersecurity workload
Summary
County IT director Herman told commissioners the department is seeing a sharp rise in help requests and cybersecurity anomalies and asked for two new network administrator positions, an administrative assistant and a pay-grade reclassification to sustain operations and redundancy.
Herman, Dawson County IT director, asked the Board of Commissioners to approve two new network staff positions, an administrative assistant and one reclassification during a budget work session. He told the board the department averaged 360 work requests per month in 2025 compared with 246 per month in 2024 and faces growing cybersecurity demands tied to new facilities and increased county productivity.
The request would add a tiered networking structure: promote the existing network administrator to “Network Administrator 2,” promote an IT technician to “Network Administrator 1” and reclassify the IT technician’s base grade from 13 to 16; add a new administrative assistant (grade 11). Herman said the grade/step for the assistant is typically set by HR’s recommendation of $17.99 per hour for grade 11, though the packet included a requested $18.15 figure.
The nut graf: commissioners were told the changes are designed to provide redundancy for the network team that acts as the county’s primary cybersecurity response and to cover faster-growing day-to-day support work stemming from more facilities and more county projects.
Herman outlined specifics: the county has added sites that increase Internet costs (the new 911 building requires two dedicated Internet connections), training needs are rising (one advanced AI course he cited costs more than $25,000, and he requested $4,000 for department training), and licensing counts for Office 365 and other services have increased. He also said the county already contracts with an outside cybersecurity partner to monitor events 24/7 and that partner “does the work of about three staff members” but increased events still drive internal workload.
Board members asked practical questions about pay-grade baselines and HR recommendations; one commissioner confirmed salary-setting follows HR’s base recommendation (the $17.99 grade-11 baseline for the administrative assistant). Commissioners discussed Microsoft .gov email spam filtering and options to tune allow/deny lists while accepting the risk of missing messages. Herman said Teams roll-out has been under way since 2023 but adoption depends on departments accepting the tool.
No formal vote was recorded at the session. Finance and HR were asked for follow-up clarification on the recommended base hourly rate and to verify line-item impacts in the broader IT/Splosh capital plan.
The presentation established the department’s case but did not produce a final decision at the meeting; commissioners asked staff to return with HR and finance clarifications before any personnel actions are approved.
