"I think it benefits the city as a whole and really reflects the mayor's priority to make city business more efficient," Chief Administrative Officer Jill Cahill said of the initiative during public hearing on Zoom last week.
The city's IT director, Ryan Knowles, said the loan order covers work to update the production data center at Gloucester High School which houses all of the computer storage for city applications. It was a substantial investment put in place about seven years ago by Knowles' predecessor James Pope, who left this position in May 2020.
"Maybe it seems challenging to accept but if you even think about the speed of technology and the things that have changed in seven years, it's substantial," Knowles noted.
The typical lifecycle of such gear is about seven years, he said, adding it would be "a poor use of funds" to pour money into the existing appliances to make them incrementally faster or more efficient.
The storage the city has "is going to go end-of-life in January," he said. He said the city is reaching the point where it is hitting ceilings in terms of the computer resources available.
The loan order would also cover new network switching, which transports data among all city and school buildings. He noted that in conjunction with Grant Harris, the director of information technology for Gloucester Public Schools, they have secured a $400,000 federal grant to offset the $800,000 purchase for the network switching gear.
An additional portion of the loan would be for an integrated phone system citywide, given that now, there is one phone system for about three-quarters of the city covering all of the municipal offices other than City Hall; and a phone system each for City Hall, the Police Department, and the schools.
This wastes money for inbound and outbound calls between departments, Knowles said, instead of employees simply dialing an extension.
"You think about the number of phone calls that go between City Hall and the Annex every day, every one of those costs money for an inbound and outbound call on both sides," Knowles said.
He said the project, while costly and substantial, would provide savings in terms of reducing phone bills and benefits of efficiency by having fewer support agreements.
Ward 2 City Councilor Tracy O'Neil asked Knowles about a December 2020 memo she had from the Community Preservation Committee allocating $1.7 million "for IT service upgrades."
"So, should we be expecting a bill this high every two years to keep up with technology?" she asked.
The city's CFO, John Dunn, said the Community Preservation Committee funding will help cover future renovations of City Hall, including for a fire suppression system. Cahill said that work hasn't started yet and is a separate project. Dunn also said none of the money has been spent. Knowles said money allocated in 2020 would go for data wiring improvements in City Hall.
"If your question is are we going to expect, you know, a multi-million loan request every couple of years, for a bunch of IT stuff, the answer is 'no,'" Knowles said.
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