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Prince William County seeks $26.5 million IT refresh, delays 311 rollout to mid‑May as cyber threats rise
Summary
IT Director Rob Mancini asked supervisors to program a five‑year $26.5 million replace‑and‑refresh program to update core infrastructure, said cyber incidents have increased sharply, and told the board the county aims to launch its 311 service around May 15 rather than March 31.
Prince William County's director of information technology told the Board that the county must sustain regular investments to avoid recurring technical debt, address growing cyber threats and support new services such as 311.
"The one in the middle is the one I'll never sleep on," Rob Mancini said, referring to cybersecurity among other IT priorities.
Mancini described a 5‑year "replace and refresh" request totaling about $26,500,000 to update core infrastructure purchased in 2018–2020 and to keep the county on current support and security lifecycles. He told supervisors that the modernization completed earlier this decade made later transformation possible, but that hardware and platform refreshes generally require replacement on a roughly five‑year cadence.
Mancini said the county's planned 311 program will be more robust than initial budgets suggested. He told the Board that the original 311 budget was about $700,000 but the full recurring cost of the service is closer to $2.3 million per year; the difference drives a roughly $1.6 million annual gap. Mancini said the county is using Amazon Web Services, Salesforce and Accenture/Encapsulate for the platform and that the rollout is now aiming for about May 15, to give staff more time for testing and training.
On cybersecurity, Mancini said the county is seeing a substantial rise in incidents and defensive workload and emphasized that ongoing investment reduces vulnerability. He also updated the Board on an unrelated broadband/fiber project: 470 of 474 addresses in a pilot were lit for service earlier than expected and the project contains about 37 miles of fiber.
Supervisors asked about contract and vendor pricing (including prior Motorola arrangements for public safety radio equipment) and whether specific IT replacements should be budgeted as operating or capital items; staff said the county typically treats these refreshes as recurring operating investments. Several supervisors asked for ongoing strategic briefings; Mancini said the department's govX (government experience) strategy will be refreshed and presented in the spring.
Mancini also listed several other agency technology items in the proposed budget: upgrades to a juvenile case management system, a study for records management tied to new 9‑1‑1 center technology, police and sheriff body‑camera funding and a planned mass appraisal system replacement for the assessment office.
Ending: Mancini said staff will continue testing and training for the 311 platform and will return with additional detail on the timing and operational costs; supervisors asked for regular strategic updates on IT posture and refresh cadence.
