Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Cybersecurity topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County committee scrutinizes VPN, cloud hosting and security licensing in TEBS budget
Summary
TEBS pitched ongoing cloud-hosting, iBoss monitoring and a $440,000 VPN replacement during the FY26 budget review. Committee added the VPN item to reconciliation pending timing and cost clarification and was told migration and licensing choices could free $500,000 in telecommunications costs.
Committee members reviewed several TEBS items tied to cybersecurity and infrastructure that carry ongoing operating costs.
TEBS and Director Gail Roper said the county seeks additional iBoss cloud storage and monitoring capabilities to detect and block county data being copied into public AI chat platforms. Roper described a private cloud to keep county data from being exposed and said iBoss tools will help "oversee how our data is being used across the entire county." (Director Gail Roper)
On VPN replacement, Dr. Torregas advised the committee that the current VPN system is near end of life and TEBS proposed a $440,000 budget line to begin migration. The committee asked TEBS to examine whether the full amount is required in FY26, and TEBS agreed to return with more precise migration timing; the item was added to the reconciliation list for now.
On telecommunications, TEBS staff described a plan to migrate roughly 7,000 county users (excluding public-safety and essential call centers) to Microsoft Teams telephone during the calendar year, and said that shift could generate approximately $500,000 in savings if licensing and migration assumptions hold. Joe (speaker 10) explained that the county's upgrade to Microsoft G5 licenses made Teams telephone available without incremental cost in some cases and that Teams has matured feature-wise to be comparable to other cloud telephone offerings.
Next steps: TEBS will refine the VPN timeline and cost, return with hosting and transition options, and quantify potential net savings from the planned Teams telephone migration before the reconciliation is finalized.
