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Commissioners weigh deferring data-center upgrades versus risk of failures
Summary
County staff said some upgrades could be deferred or scoped down, but warned that deferral increases the risk of hardware failure and downtime; staff offered to return with smaller quotes and a more granular IT budget breakdown.
Commissioners debated whether to defer noncritical IT projects to preserve budget in the current fiscal year or to proceed now to reduce operational risk.
Sam acknowledged some items could be deferred and offered to return with smaller, lower-cost scope options. He cautioned, however, that deferring certain items — particularly spare parts and storage capacity — increases the risk of cascading hardware failures that could degrade data-center uptime. "Rolling the dice on a hard drive failing and us not being able to respond quickly enough ... that's rolling the dice on the data center itself and your uptime," Sam said.
The court discussed phasing out certain local firewall devices and consolidating tax-office networking into the Main Street annex to save recurring monthly charges, and commissioners asked staff to provide a roadmap and revised cost estimates that could be implemented either immediately at a smaller cost or budgeted in the next fiscal year.
