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County CIO seeks new IT staff and capital funds as cybersecurity, Oracle rollout move forward
Summary
Jack Martin told the council OIT is expanding cybersecurity protections, migrating to cloud platforms and launching a multi‑year Oracle financials project (called 'Harbor'); staff requested new application‑support positions, conversions and a $5.4M network hardware request tied to several IT projects.
Jack Martin, the county chief information officer, told the Anne Arundel County Council on May 20 that the Office of Information Technology’s FY27 request focuses on cybersecurity hardening, migration to centralized ITSM tooling, and multi‑year capital programs including a new Oracle financial system (referred to in the presentation as 'Harbor').
Martin outlined four major IT priorities: a cloud application backbone and leased fiber to Northern Virginia; Land Use Navigator (electronic plan markup); public‑safety projects such as the CAD upgrade; and enterprise security — expanded multifactor authentication (MFA), security assessments and new senior security personnel. He said recent hacking incidents accelerated several items on the security plan and that those vulnerabilities have been remediated; Martin offered to provide a status briefing in a face‑to‑face session.
OIT requested several operational and capital items in FY27. The presentation called for six new application‑support positions tied to the Oracle rollout (with roles planned to be embedded in finance, DPW, budget and procurement), contractor conversions, and reclassification requests to support Harbor. Martin said the Oracle implementation will go live in phases beginning in July and that the new cloud ERP’s quarterly update cadence makes continuous testing, training and change‑management staff necessary.
Capital asks highlighted in the presentation included funding for network refresh and replacements (Martin cited a $5,433,400 network‑equipment figure), the Oracle system migration, Land Use Navigator (Accela eMarkup), the CAD public‑safety upgrade and Greenberry Point tower engineering for public‑safety radio. Martin also described a split of the existing large C5196 project into four focused IT capital projects (OIT enhancements; IT corporate infrastructure; public‑safety tech enhancements; network and security enhancements) to improve management and oversight.
Council members asked several detailed questions. Councilmember Smith asked whether the FY27 request covers remediation of vulnerabilities from prior incidents; Martin said yes and offered to provide a detailed status update. Councilmember Volke questioned why multiple new merit positions were required in the same year; Martin said some roles are long‑term support needs for the continuously updated cloud ERP and that interim contractor support will be used during the initial go‑live.
What happens next: OIT will return with additional detail for council review and follow‑up briefings are expected on security posture and Oracle implementation staffing and timelines.
