Information Technology Advisory Committee - Jan 16th, 2020

Construction and Renovation. There are lots of projects happening in town. The preschool is moving out of the Parmenter School, bids for the Central School renovation are due in February, and we're working on moving offices and network infrastructure for the DPW building renovation. And there's the high school.

VoIP. The library will have VoIP installed in the near future; the work will probably start in a month. We still have to install VoIP systems in two fire stations, the Parmenter, and several school administrative offices. It's the last stretch of the rollout.

Munis. Ongoing projects include water meter management, automating water meter reading infrastructure, data collection software for water meter readings, and water billing. We're doing a 40-home pilot with the new system. The various stakeholders are ironing out data exchange protocols. We've also added a personnel action form for the hiring process, which replaces a paper form.

The town is in negotiations with RCN, to see if we can get space in their data center. This would reduce the number of equipment moves needed for the high school construction.

LinkedIn Learning. We had proposed a partnership with the library, whereby the library would offer LinkedIn Learning materials for use by residents and town employees. We're still negotiating with LinkedIn, but the project's on hold for now. Negotiations stalled because of reluctance on the LinkedIn side.

InForce 911. When we started looking at InForce 911, there was a big lack of functionality in their Chromebook app. The vendor claims that the functional shortcomings have been addressed. The next steps will be to work with Chief Flaherty and Superintendent Bodie to run a pilot with the Chromebook software. We may consider a different vendor if the software doesn't work this time, now that similar products are available.

Town Meeting Modernization. The modernization group's first request was to have better wireless access in the town hall auditorium. We upgraded and added wireless access points in the auditorium. Another thought was to use a different type of podium, to improve presentation facilities. There will be additional surveys sent to town meeting members, so we can figure out what kind of documents are easily viewable on devices vs. what works better on paper. We still need to research auditorium seating options, to see if we can better accommodate device use.

Video Surveillance. We've installed a video surveillance system at the Ottoson middle school. The town's video storage is centralized in a secure facility -- a dedicated storage array on a separate VLAN. The Ottoson uses the town's standard video equipment.

Cyber Security Assessments and Privacy Insurance. We're looking at a policy that would cover damage due to hacking, business interruption, and cyber extortion. We don't know what it will cost yet. The application form is elaborate and detailed, and we can't get a quote until we've submitted the application. Once we know the cost, we can perform a cost/benefit analysis.