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Parker County IT director seeks AI and two portable camera trailers for security
Summary
IT Director James Caywood told commissioners the IT operating budget falls 28% from last year after excluding one-time public-safety capital, and he requested funds for AI integrations, an alignment tool, a new vehicle if a position is approved, and two portable Verkada camera trailers for security and events.
James Caywood, Parker County’s IT director, told the court that once last year’s one-time public-safety capital is removed the department’s recurring budget is roughly flat, though several vendor contracts rose about 7%. He said the office has been testing AI tools for cybersecurity and maintenance and proposed a small AI-integrations line to continue that work.
"We actually have a reduction of 28% under last year's IT budget," James said, noting that the prior year included a large public-safety capital purchase. He asked for two portable Verkada camera trailers (which he estimated as a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar CapEx when buying two units), a $50,000 radio-alignment tool to do in-house tower alignments and avoid vendor costs, and a vehicle if the new staff position is approved.
Commissioners asked for clarifications on unit counts and pricing for the trailers and probed recurring software increases (James said many vendor packages are increasing about 7%). He said grant work is in progress to cover up to about 80% of firewall replacement costs and that one-time savings from XDR reductions helped offset some requests. The court asked IT to provide final quotes and grant-status updates before decisions are made.
