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Narragansett reviews IT budget: phone service consolidated, cybersecurity and security-system upgrades planned
Summary
During the Town of Narragansett budget work session, the council reviewed the Information Technology budget, including consolidation of the town's voice-over-IP phone billing, funding for enterprise software and cybersecurity, town-owned fiber maintenance and a planned physical security system replacement across multiple buildings.
Council President Menzies opened the Town of Narragansett’s first budget work session of the season with a review of the Information Technology budget.
Dan Holland, director/manager of Information Technology, said the department’s personnel and benefits costs are set by the town’s bargaining agreements and insurers, and that IT and Community Development budgets both fell by almost 8 percent from the prior year in part because of staffing changes and the consolidation of one planned position. "IT is responsible for everything IT related in the town, which is everything we do now," Holland said.
Holland walked the council through operating and capital items. On operating lines, the town consolidated voice-over-IP telephone charges from separate departmental accounts into one centralized budget for easier billing and accounting. "The idea was to combine it, from each department because it's the same amount no matter what it is," he said.
He said the operating budget also covers internet service providers, the town website, wireless connectivity, software subscriptions, antivirus and email filtering, firewall support, two-factor authentication and backup services. Core enterprise items listed in the materials include Tyler Munis (the town financial/ERP system), OpenGov (billing, permits and licensing), the town’s asset-management and work-order system, and Microsoft 365.
On capital, Holland outlined four line items: a fund for repair/maintenance of town-owned fiber optic cable in the community; an IT equipment reserve for unanticipated replacements; and a planned physical security system replacement beginning at town hall and extending to public safety and other buildings. "We actually own [the fiber optic cable] ourselves. And every time it breaks, we have to have it repaired," Holland said. He described the existing access control system as a proprietary, early-2000s installation that is expensive to modify; the replacement would move to a more open platform to allow multiple vendors and reduce long-term costs.
Council members asked about the town server and disaster response. Holland said the town’s virtual-machine server infrastructure is new — "one of them is 2 years old, the other one's a year old" — and that the town maintains a disaster recovery plan. "We do have a disaster recovery plan," he said, but added that the town does not spend enough to guarantee immunity from every possible cyberattack.
Holland described cost-saving practices: extending PC hardware life beyond industry norms, reusing and cannibalizing older equipment, using open-source or consolidated vendor solutions when feasible, and virtualization to avoid large hardware replacement costs.
No formal votes or motions were recorded during the IT presentation; discussion continued to other departmental budgets.
Ending: Holland and council members agreed to continue reviewing IT items in upcoming budget workshops and to refer follow-up technical questions to town accounting and IT staff.
