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Committee approves upgrade of PC tech to network systems administrator to reduce contractor costs
Summary
Finance committee voted 4–0 to upgrade an existing PC tech position to a network systems administrator after the IT director argued the role requires enterprise-level skills; the committee cited high contractor costs (reported $150/hour and about $13,000 billed in May) and budgeted salary lines already in place.
The Homewood City Finance Committee voted 4–0 on June 3 to upgrade an existing PC tech position to a network systems administrator, following a presentation by the city’s new IT director, Brandon Sims.
Sims told the committee the police department operates an enterprise virtualized data center and that a PC tech would likely be overwhelmed supporting that environment. "I don't think it would be a good idea for us to put a PC tech in that position," Sims said, and recommended upgrading the position to provide in‑house expertise that could also support citywide infrastructure.
Sims presented compensation figures from the city's salary plan, stating that "the annual for step 1 on the PC tech is, 55,556, dollars and 80¢," and that "the annual for step 1 on the network admin would be 70,000, $907.20" as reported in the meeting record. He also said the city currently pays an outside contractor about $150 an hour and that May billing for contracted IT services was around $13,000. Committee members discussed moving existing budgeted money from an unfilled tech line to cover the change this fiscal year and noted that additional IT staffing requests would be considered during the next budget cycle.
A motion to approve the upgrade carried 4–0 and the committee chair said the change will be on the full council agenda on Monday night for final action.
