Mooresville council approves SHI hardware purchase, hires Exos for FortiGate installation

The Mooresville Town Council voted 5-0 to purchase FortiGate firewall hardware from state-bid vendor SHI and to hire the town's IT contractor, Exos, to perform installation.

Chair (Speaker 1) said Exos provided the hardware specifications but quoted $32,747 for equipment, while SHI quoted $19,233.52, creating an equipment savings of about $13,513 if the town purchases through SHI and retains Exos for labor. "It is exactly the same," the Chair said of the hardware, adding Exos wrote the specifications. The Chair said the goal was to avoid post-sale finger-pointing between companies: "I don't want to buy something from someone and then if Exos goes to put it in, it doesn't work, that they blame the other company."

During questions, Council member (Speaker 3) asked who would assume responsibility after installation and whether SHI could sign a transfer of liability: "Is there anything that they can sign once they turn it over? ... Any problems is going to be on us? Or are they going to could they always go back and go, Hey, this is SHI's problem, not ours?" The Chair and others replied that Exos would stand behind its installation work and that SHI does not perform installation.

The council first voted to approve purchase of the FortiGate hardware from SHI and then voted to approve the labor portion to be performed by Exos; both motions passed by voice vote recorded as 5-0. The Chair noted the town's CCD capital outlay fund balance was $154,392.95 when discussing available funding for the purchase.

Next steps are administrative: the town will finalize the equipment purchase through SHI and proceed with scheduling Exos to perform installation under the terms discussed at the meeting. No ordinance or statutory citation was referenced during the discussion.