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Committee reviews IT budget, staff urges multiyear review of contracts and lifecycle replacements
Summary
IT staff presented the FY2025 technology budget, highlighting badge access, a new ID badge station, CrowdStrike EDR and a five‑year device replacement policy; committee members asked for department-level line‑item detail and multi‑year planning for audiovisual and phone systems.
Larry, the city’s IT presenter, opened the Ways and Means discussion of the proposed FY2025 IT budget and listed this year’s accomplishments, including badge access upgrades at City Hall, an HR image‑capture and badge‑printing station, fiber to the new Brentwood Park and replacement of a recreation‑center surveillance server. He said the department deployed CrowdStrike as its endpoint detection and response platform and migrated several applications to cloud hosting.
Larry also walked members through the city’s replacement and capital plans: a five‑year lifecycle for desktops and laptops, a seven‑year lifecycle for printers and servers, and a schedule that in some cases moves projects into a central replacement fund. He warned the city phone system — deployed in 2012 — is past its useful life and that replacement desk phones are no longer purchasable for the old system.
Committee members pressed for more granular detail of spending in the IT contractual account and for clearer inclusion of audiovisual and meeting‑technology refreshes in the city’s five‑year plan. One alderman asked whether the recurring failure to present meeting audio/video reliably suggested the city should accelerate replacement of the click‑share system; an alderwoman said a hardwired solution or different vendors should be considered and asked the IT team to include those options in future planning.
Larry said he can supply spreadsheets that break costs down by department and platform, and he noted that some platform line items could be zeroed out if the city moves to a cloud‑hosted body‑camera and video platform. He recommended departments assist in answering technical questions about why each subscription or platform is required.
What’s next: staff will provide the committee with itemized spreadsheets by department and work with departments on any change proposals; committee members asked that major audiovisual shortfalls and the aging phone system be addressed in the five‑year planning process.
