County staff urge caution on Microsoft Teams chat rollout over records cost

Mac McCoy, the county's director of IT, presented a renewal of the county's Microsoft enterprise agreement and a contested add-on, Purview, that would enable end-to-end retention and public-records search needed to deploy Microsoft Teams chat countywide. McCoy said the three-year enterprise agreement is about $1.3 million and described the Purview add-on as an additional unfunded cost "roughly $80,000 per year" over three years. "Microsoft last year decided to change their model...and so once when they changed that model, they added on additional licensing fees," he said.

McCoy walked the board through four options: delay deployment of Teams chat and omit the Purview add-on (no new cost or records risk), deploy Teams chat and purchase the Purview add-on (mitigates public-records risk but increases cost), rely on existing, lower-tier Purview functionality (retention limitations and higher risk), or pilot Teams and Purview in a single department (temporary mitigation but eventual full cost). McCoy said the licensing change means "the person that's being searched need a license as well," a change he characterized as Microsoft "double dipping." Several commissioners signaled support for delaying a countywide Teams chat deployment to avoid the recurring Purview expense while they consider alternatives and timing.

The decision was deferred; commissioners requested additional budget details and said they would revisit the item during the formal budget amendment process. The options leave the county balancing immediate records compliance risk against multi-year licensing costs and the tradeoffs of piloting versus countywide rollout.