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IT director defends consolidation of software costs, previews public-facing AI assistant
Summary
Brian Packwood told the Finance Committee that centralizing software and cell‑phone budgets in ITS will raise IT line items but largely represents reallocation; he previewed an in‑house AI ‘Annie’, discussed GIS cloud migration, uptime goals, cybersecurity staffing and asked for flexibility in analyst staffing.
Brian Packwood, director of Integrated Technology Solutions, told the Finance Standing Committee on April 22 that the department is consolidating many software subscriptions, phone budgets and capital charges under ITS to reduce redundancy and improve cybersecurity and vendor management.
Packwood detailed operational wins: refinements to enterprise permitting and licensing that provide real‑time reporting to department leaders, help‑desk ticketing tied to endpoint management, and a managed cloud migration of the city’s GIS environment to AWS to gain uptime and reduce maintenance overhead. He said the IT team is tracking three nines of uptime as a target and acknowledged a roughly three‑hour ERP outage the previous day that could affect the quarter’s numbers.
Explaining large year‑over‑year increases in capital and contract lines, Packwood said much of the growth reflects reallocation of existing departmental software, the city cell‑phone budget and specific projects such as a potential merger/upgrade of computer‑aided dispatch with Anne Arundel County. "That is why you guys see a tremendous jump there," he said of the capital outlay line, adding the change is intended to yield long‑term savings through centralized licensing and vendor vetting.
On staffing, Packwood described requests for analyst positions (ERP, permitting/licensing and GIS) and the planned conversion of a fire‑department IT consultant into a staff role; he emphasized that while the role will prioritize fire projects it will sit in ITS and be available citywide. He also explained a change in classification for the cybersecurity specialist: rather than creating a new class code, cybersecurity responsibilities will be filled using the existing ITS network engineer class.
Packwood previewed a public‑facing AI concierge called "Annie," developed in‑house by the webmaster, and said departments are testing it with a possible public release in four to six weeks. He agreed to supply the committee with projected costs for enterprise AI seats (OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini) but said the administration wants a formal usage policy and PII safeguards in place before broad deployment.
Why it matters: consolidating software under ITS changes how the budget will show costs and may produce operational savings and better cybersecurity posture, but it also concentrates significant recurring costs in one department. Packwood committed to provide a mapping of moved items and to return with estimates for AI enterprise‑seat budgeting and the effect of potential additional staffing.
