The county Board of Commissioners gave preliminary approval Wednesday, Aug. 14, to a series of spending requests to upgrade its computer network, data center, information technology security, phone system, and audio and video equipment.
“Every one of these investments is absolutely necessary ... The county right now is in not much better position than we were when the event happened,” Chief Information Officer Carl Wilson told commissioners Wednesday.
In a memo to the board, Wilson said nearly all technology infrastructure in county government “has reached the end of its useful life and is no longer supported by the manufacturers.”
WIlson was hired in May to help it rebuild the county IT office, which oversees and coordinates all information resources and software training, including information and data processing, hardware and software, telecommunications and office automation.
His hiring came after a crippling ransomeware attack on the county’s computer network in April, an event that locked the county out of some of its own data.
Since that time, officials have been expecting proposals to update software and server systems, knowing it would be costly.
Resolutions given preliminary approval this week call for payments to be made from county reserves, which stand at about $39 million.
“It’s unfortunate but I agree these are things we have to do ...,” said Commissioner Mark Young. “I realize we kind of got a rude awakening (that in) quite a few (areas), we were behind the times.”
The smallest of the spending requests -- $45,734 -- would improve the audio and video located in the auditorium of the county administration building, officials said.
Although the current equipment is currently used to broadcast meetings of the commission online, those broadcasts have consistent problems with garbled audio.
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