Upgrades to county IT infrastructure

Montgomery County’s IT director Jim Scott is continuing to make upgrades to the county’s IT infrastructure.
Scott was in attendance at the regular Montgomery County Board of Supervisors meeting April 5. Scott gave an update on some of the projects he’s been working on to streamline and improve the county’s IT, including a new helpdesk system, which is being used by a majority of the county’s employees.
“The helpdesk system does a lot of things, such as keeping us accountable for outstanding issues, allows us to provide statistics for what we’re doing, and breaks down the tickets per department in March, we had 110 help desk tickets created, and closed 99 of those tickets by the end of March,” Scott said.
Also, Scott informed the supervisors he’s been working to implement new computers in a variety of the county’s departments.
“We purchased new computers for the auditor’s office, recorder’s office, treasurer’s office, sheriff’s office, the emergency management office, the sanitarian’s office, and for the board of supervisors, and so far have placed them with the auditor, recorder, emergency management, and one of two for the treasurer,” explained Scott. “One of the things we’re working on is a process for replacing computers, as there hadn’t been a set process before. We’ve created a set of forms and are working through the process. Some of the department heads have been great in helping us out with some of the things we’ve missed.”
Scott anticipated all the new computers would be rolled out by the end of April. The process was delayed, Scott said, as some of the offices had unique software.
Other projects include creating two conference room setups at the secondary roads office, one in the main office, and one in the annex. Some of the equipment, such as televisions, have been received, and other pieces are yet to be ordered.
“We’re currently doing specs for the audio system and the camera equipment, and internet access for the annex has been ordered. Installation may take up to 90 days. Once we get the main office set up at secondary roads, we may look at temporary internet for the annex, but I’m not sure right now how well it’s going to work,” commented Scott.
Also, Scott said he is working on upgrades to the courthouse IT network. Scott said currently, there were two unmanaged network switches that run the network from the basement to several points on the first floor. Scott was looking to change that.
“Once we clean out a storage room, we’re going to put a network endpoint there, with an enterprise switch and battery back-up, so the things that are driven off that will be driven like the rest of the network, as opposed to these consumer-grade switches. We’re still in the design phase of that, and we will proceed further once the basement store room is cleared up. The costs of the project will be submitted to Stephanie [Burke] for consideration for American Rescue Plan Act funds,” advised Scott.
Another phase was completion of a network endpoint that was started while Ryan Ernst was the county’s IT director, and has been sitting.
“The way the courthouse is set up, we have endpoints on each floor, the network comes to that endpoint, and then the connection runs back to the main IT room for an even distribution, and is better than trying to run wires from the third floor back to the first floor,” Scott said.
Scott was quick to point out that the network was still very stable, and these two phases were the points he had the most concerns on. Once completed, they would proceed with additional phases.
Projects outside the courthouse included replacing the network switch and firewall at the Montgomery County Public Health office, as well as relocating the hardware to a more secure area in the building. Scott said the project has become a bit of a priority, as the funding for the changes expires June 30.
Scott also shared that there was no way to install high speed internet at the county conservation office through Farmers Mutual Telephone Company until the company had its central office moved to Red Oak.
“It’s looking like it will be late summer or mid fall before they can do that project. The problem they are having is getting the equipment, which is very common. Everything electronic is constrained now,” Scott stated.