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Council approves suite of IT contracts including Office 365 tenant, VDI upgrade and managed services
Summary
The council approved three IT procurements: a $127,362.10 contract to configure a government Office 365 tenant, a $310,676.02 upgrade to the city’s virtual desktop infrastructure, and a $508,176 managed-services agreement for IT staffing and support; councilors asked about sole-source practice and long-term in-house capacity.
The Department of Resilience and Sustainability and the IT department presented three budgeted contracts with Custom Computer Specialists: configuration and licensing for a government Office 365 tenant (not to exceed $127,362.10), hardware and licensing for a VDI upgrade and on-prem backup (not to exceed $310,676.02), and a managed-services contract for ongoing support and two technicians (not to exceed $508,176). City IT director Craig explained the cybersecurity, continuity and collaboration benefits of a government Office 365 tenant and described the managed-services contract as outsourcing daily operations, monitoring and patching.
Councilors repeatedly asked whether the work is being sole-sourced to the incumbent and whether expanding in-house staffing would reduce contracting over time. Craig acknowledged long-term reliance on the incumbent because of institutional knowledge and a blanket managed-services contract but said it would be feasible over time to transition more services in-house and that he has presented an internal plan to do so. All three items were described as budgeted and were approved by the council.
