IT report: vendor shields hundreds of thousands of threats; website ADA work raises annual costs

Speaker 2 delivered the IT report, saying the county "partnered with Clean Internet, and it's a vendor that sits in front their gateway" to filter threats before they reach the county's Fortinet firewall. "As you can see, the active threats shielded was, like, 862,000 that blocked before they even hit our firewall," Speaker 2 said, and added that Fortinet-detected traffic is dropping as a result.

Speaker 2 reported 595 tickets closed for the month and described scope: the service scans clerk-side and ROE IP addresses as part of the county-paid coverage. On website accessibility, Speaker 2 said annual website support costs rose from $7,500 last year to "over 15,000" this year because of added tools and work to meet a federal compliance deadline "as of, April 24." He said the site was roughly "91% compliant" at the last report and that the county plans further changes and possible software additions, noting the tradeoffs between additional cost and legal or operational risks of remaining noncompliant.

Members asked whether the current budget could cover the increases; Speaker 4 and Speaker 2 agreed next year’s budget will need review, and Speaker 2 said he had planned for a typical 10% CivicPlus increase but not the larger jump. The body voted to accept the IT report and separately approved payment of "John's bills for IT." Motions to accept the report and to pay the bills were presented by Speaker 1 and recorded as passing by voice vote.

The record also includes a discussion about on-record identification for speakers (name and district) to help remote viewers and closed-captioning accuracy; Speaker 4 suggested committee chairs should announce speakers and members should state their district when recognized.