County IT reports Office 365 migration, fiber design to Mancos and looming Windows 10 end-of-support

The county’s IT manager reported that the Office 365 migration has produced fewer problems than anticipated and that staff training is revealing productivity gains. He said Clear Networks has completed fiber design from the county offices to Mancos but omitted a planned handhold at the fairgrounds; the county expects to own two buffer tubes (24 fiber strands) on the design and Empire Electric to receive six strands. IT staff will meet with the contractor to resolve the handhold omission and to determine whether the county will trench its own conduit to the fairgrounds or pay the vendor to install it.

IT staff also warned commissioners that Microsoft will end support for Windows 10 on Oct. 31 (no more security updates). IT estimates about 50 county computers will not be upgradable to Windows 11 because of age; the county currently supports roughly 400 physical computers and nearly 1,100 monitored devices in total. The department is moving more staff to laptops with docking stations to reduce device counts and licensing overhead.

The IT manager said social-services and other state-provided offices use state-supplied computers that cycle on different schedules and that those devices are managed under separate arrangements. He asked commissioners to note the budget exposure from replacing aging devices and offered to provide more detailed replacement plans. No formal action was recorded.