County Commissioners OK added IT support

The Churchill County Commissioners approved at their Wednesday meeting to request proposals for professional services providing IT support to administrative offices.

County Manager Eleanor Lockwood said Advanced Data Systems currently provides IT support for the majority of the county offices including maintenance of the Power 6 Server, network systems and workstations. She said last year ADS installed a NAS Directory Domain, a separate server that now hosts the county’s orthophotos, shared folders and email.

“The primary reason for this installation was to maintain the original purpose of the Power 6 Server, which is to host our AS400 data and programs and to reduce the rapid consumption of disk space on the Power 6 Server,” she said.

With the installation of the NAS Directory Domain, Lockwood said, there is a clear separation between the Power 6 (software and hardware) and the individual workstations (software and hardware). She said to optimize the benefits of the NAS Directory Domain and improve rapidity of IT support for the latter, she recommends seeking professional services from a company with expertise in Windows-based programs that can not only provide IT support but also assist county in identifying more effective ways to manage emails, develop guidelines for storage and archiving and develop guidelines for software and hardware upgrades.

“The proposed IT support contract will include network maintenance, onsite reactive support, proactive maintenance, remote access, back-up and archiving, networking, IT management, planning and budgeting and training of county employees,” she said.

Lockwood added the contractor will conduct quarterly IT review meetings with the county to address higher level management items including support trends, hardware, software, networking, IT strategy and more. The contractor will also work with the county to create a high level IT strategy to identify and budget for upcoming technology related items and guidance regarding licensing and software, she said.

Both commissioner Pete Olsen and Carl Erquiaga said the proposal sounds like a great idea.

Lockwood will now assemble a panel to review and rank applicants, interview the highest ranked two or three applicants and make a final recommendation to the commissioners.

Other items approved by the commissioners include the following:

Approved the job description dispatch supervisor as submitted and assign to pay grade 53.

Approved the proposed contract with Sletten Construction to provide preconstruction services with the condition that it not go into effect until after the expiration of the time for filing a protest of award.