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Alton approves IT budget and green-lights website rebuild to cut hosting costs and improve access
Summary
The IT manager won selectmen approval for a $210,412 IT budget aimed at cybersecurity, cloud backups and device management and secured board support to proceed with a WordPress site replacement to improve usability and reduce hosting costs.
Alton's IT manager told the Board of Selectmen on Nov. 12 that the town's current website and some in-car cruiser tablets are past their useful life and that an investment in security tools, cloud backups and device-management software is needed to protect town systems.
The board approved the IT department's 2026 budget request of $210,412 by voice vote. The manager said the town paid for overlapping software licenses this year while migrating systems and expects one-time residual costs to fall away in future budgets. He also requested about $5,000 to install hardware upgrades to cruiser tablets to enable the Windows 11 security features (trusted platform modules) that the devices lack.
On the website, the manager said he has built a WordPress replacement that would improve mobile access, let department heads maintain their own pages, and reduce current hosting costs (current hosting estimated at ~$3,000; new hosting estimated ~$600). He offered to present a demo at the next meeting and said a December or early-January rollout is realistic if the board approves continued development.
What happens next: IT will provide a demo of the proposed site at a future meeting; the manager will coordinate department-head access and return with a final rollout plan and any procurement details for tablet upgrades.
