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Committee presses county on volume, timing of employee trainings, suggests staggering and local content
Summary
Tompkins County legislators questioned the cumulative hours and overlap of mandatory and county‑required employee trainings and asked staff to consider staggering modules, reducing non‑mandated frequency, and hosting some content locally to save staff time without violating state mandates.
Tompkins County lawmakers pressed county staff at their Aug. 11 Government Operations Committee meeting to clarify how much total training time employees must complete and whether non‑state mandates could be reduced or staggered.
Bridget Nugent of County Administration described a new quarterly compilation of funded‑agency reports intended to improve transparency and confirmed that the county’s training team has pulled together required metrics for the legislature. "So this is put together by members of our budget team," Nugent said, describing the new reporting effort and how it will be used to show compliance with contract requirements. County ITS staff told members the county uses the KnowBe4 learning management system for its cybersecurity and phishing training modules and that some cybersecurity training is now mandated under New York State technology rules.
Several legislators said the volume and timing — particularly for new employees who receive many modules at once — make training burdensome. "I also felt the burden of training when I onboarded... it felt like I couldn't actually devote myself very well to any of the training modules because it was so much to get through," said Judith Hubbard, a committee member. Committee members asked the training team to review which modules are required annually by law, which are county policy and which might be moved to a less frequent schedule so employees can absorb the material.
ITS staff described efforts to split yearly mandatory trainings into multiple smaller segments and to prioritize cybersecurity in the first phase. "So, years ago, we got KnowBe4 for phishing campaigns and cybersecurity training... we folded that into our KnowBe4 platform," said Lauren (ITS). She said the county also uses the platform to run phishing campaigns and that the cybersecurity content is encouraged by the county’s insurer. Lawmakers asked that the county return with options — including staggering, local short videos or scripted in‑house content — and cost estimates for potentially reducing vendor fees and staff time.
The committee directed the training committee and administration to review the mix of mandatory and county‑priority modules, quantify staff hours and costs across the county’s roughly 800 employees, and return with recommendations on staggered schedules and possible local content to reduce duplicative training time.
