Director Jerry Klein updated the committee on major CCIT projects, emphasizing AI policy, staff training and a forthcoming phone-system replacement.

Klein said the county is drafting a practice document and policy to guide staff on when to use AI tools and how to protect confidential information. "The prompt stays within Copilot inside of our tenant," he explained, describing differences between enterprise Microsoft Copilot licensing and free public models. He warned that text entered into free AI models "is theirs" and may be retained by those vendors.

Klein said the county will provide limited Copilot Pro licenses to a small group of staff and form a work group to develop targeted agents (GPTs) that point to county data. He also said UW Extension will provide on-site training in mid-December in partnership with WCA for a regional cohort of counties.

On infrastructure, Klein said the county is beginning the replacement of its on-premises Cisco phone system with Cisco’s Webex cloud solution and will interview departments about call-routing and phone assignments. CCIT also is working to improve forensic-center software integration and to migrate Internet and device management systems (Intune) ahead of year-end property-tax work.

Klein emphasized staff education and limited roll-out for advanced AI licenses to avoid inadvertently exposing private data, and said the county will return with implementation details and any budget implications as projects progress.