Barnstable County IT director outlines $70,000 security setup, managed‑services plan in FY2027 budget review

Billy Travers, IT director for Barnstable County, told the Cape Cod Regional Government Assembly standing committee on telecommunications and energy that the department’s FY2027 proposal emphasizes information security, managed services and license rationalization.

"What we are looking to spend on the information security...approximately $70,000," Travers said, describing the amount as a one‑time setup and configuration cost with recurring maintenance thereafter. He said the county expects some offsets, primarily by changing how it hosts its Tyler Munis enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Why it matters: The committee heard that shifting hosting of the county’s Munis (Tyler ERP) environment to Tyler Technologies’ hosted service would reduce the county’s own cloud hosting liability and was expected to lower hosted‑service costs by roughly $30,000 annually. Travers framed the budget as structurally balanced through a mixture of cost consolidation, utilization‑based licensing and modest revenue growth.

Travers also recommended adopting managed services for tier‑1 support to decrease reliance on in‑house staff and to provide capacity to scale if additional towns ask for services. "This is basically tier 1 or basic IT support services...allow us to more effectively deploy our regular staff resources to projects," he said.

The presentation covered licensing and cost‑control strategies. Travers said the department has been reviewing utilization to right‑size Microsoft and other software tiers; he pointed to an example where reducing DocuSign transaction usage and shifting some transactional processing back to the ERP could cut DocuSign costs in half. "I would say realistically...at least 50% less, so $30,000 lower than what we renewed for last year," Travers said.

Delegates pressed for detail on revenue and budget alignment. Delia Harder noted she read the budget as more than $2 million in expenditures versus roughly $435,000 in revenues and asked whether she had misread the numbers. Travers said the department has invoiced nearly $300,000 so far this year and projects total revenues in the $450,000–$500,000 range depending on customer demand. He cited a $37,000 incident‑response engagement last year as a driver of revenue variability.

The committee also discussed whether the county can offer IT services beyond Barnstable County. Administrator Dutton said the Assembly plans to commission an indirect/external cost study (if approved in the budget) to determine appropriate cost allocation and fees; he said the study would begin after July 1 and could take two to three months to complete.

On governance and budget procedure, Travers confirmed the Munis hosting change would be reflected in the finance department’s budget line for hosting and that the IT department’s contractual‑services line will include costs for managed services and information‑security consulting.

Votes and next steps: Delegate Delia Harder moved to recommend the FY2027 IT budget to the finance committee as proposed; Delegate King seconded. The clerk called the roll and the motion passed unanimously (Delegates Gallagher, Harder, Killian and King voted yes; Vice Chair Green was absent). The committee then adjourned.

What’s next: With the committee’s recommended referral, the finance committee will consider the IT line items as part of the broader county budget process; Travers and staff said they will provide more detailed backup on the contractual and security line items on request.