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Small Town Illinois Police Chief Inherits IT Duties

Glen Carbon, Ill., Police Chief Todd Link called it a process of elimination and added it made less sense for the public works, finance or building and zoning departments to assume these duties.

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(TNS) — Unlike many larger municipalities, Glen Carbon lacks an information technology (IT) department. Recently, Village Administrator Jamie Bowden assigned the village's information technology (IT) duties to the police department and they were approved by the village's public safety committee on Nov. 15.

Police Chief Todd Link called it a process of elimination and added it made less sense for the public works, finance or building and zoning departments to assume these duties.

"It's safer, more effective and more efficient," Link said Thursday.

In a memo dated Nov. 15, Link wrote, "As the department head tasked with public safety, I am also responsible for addressing emergency incidents. Information technology (IT) issues are not just issues regarding efficiency within our village operations; they are also increasingly issues that impact public safety and emergency services."

This change also puts the village on a pro-active footing when it comes to hacking and fraud.

"A targeted IT hacking incident could not only lead to a large-scale fraud and theft incident but it could also cripple our daily operations within the village for an extended period of time."

In May, the city of Quincy paid a ransom of $650,000 to hackers and others so it could regain control of its data and computer servers. Half a million of that sum was just for the encryption key; the rest went to outside consultants. As of Nov. 14, according to TV station WGEM, employees have email but some departments still cannot accept credit/debit card payments six months later.

"IT is a public safety issue," Link said.

Link says between now and 2025, he and his staff will be responsible for achieving two primary tasks. First will be to fund, purchase and implement Body Worn Cameras (BWCs) along with all associated technology required to comply with the SAFE-T Act mandated by the law's deadline of Jan. 1, 2025.

Second, it will involve the creation of a holistic plan to improve auditing, planning, purchasing and implementing all technology village-wide to eliminate redundancies and increase efficiency across all departments.

Now this plan will go before the entire village board of trustees at a later date for approval.

© 2022 Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Ill.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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