Information Technology

Information Technology Committee August 26, 2021 Via Zoom or East GF Conference Room Call Meeting to Order: Hansen called the meeting to order at 10:02 A.M. Members Present: Thiede; Hansen; Knoll; LaBrec; Members Absent: Bub; Other Attendees: Melissa Lind; Jen Strama; Approve Minutes: Thiede moved to approve the minutes of the June 17, 2021 meeting. Seconded by LaBrec. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Approve Agenda: Thiede moved to approve the agenda with 9 items; LaBrec seconded. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Incode / Executime Update: The project is getting close to being finished. For this pay period, all employees are doing dual entry, using paper timesheets and ExecuTime entry. Jacky and Melissa are working through the errors. Taylor County is unique and has many, many pay codes that cause issues. Department heads are using Incode and printing reports for their budget planning. Broadband Update: Russ Berg will be contacting Melissa to review what will be needed at Taylor County for equipment when splicing and installation begins. Some townships may use ARPA funds towards Broadband and possibly put-up cell towers at their sites. Wireless Upgrade Update: The wireless upgrade project is completed. Jen and Melissa were able to install most of the access points around the courthouse and human services, which resulted in a cost savings. Any of the access points that were mounted on high ceilings, maintenance took care of replacing. Since the update, users are getting close to 300MB download speeds. In the past, they only 40MB was the highest. 2022 Budget: The computer replacement plan stayed the same. Some money was added to the print management account. Melissa is hoping to get ARPA funds to purchase upgraded switches and then get on a different phone plan to solve the constant network drops. Thiede made a motion to approve the 2022 budget; LaBrec seconded. All Ayes. Motion Carried. ARPA Funds: Melissa requested $68,000 of the ARPA funds to be used for switch upgrades and Know B4 Cyber Security tools and trainings. It would be a three-year subscription and employees would be required to take trainings related to cyber security, phishing emails and scams. County Board will meet and decide which ARPA requests are approved. Adjournment: Thiede made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:41 a.m. Seconded by Hansen. Motion Carried. The next IT Committee Meeting will be scheduled when needed. Information Technology Committee June 17, 2021 Via Zoom or East GF Conference Room Call Meeting to Order: Bub called the meeting to order at 10:00 A.M. Members Present: Thiede; Hansen; Knoll; Bub Members Absent: LaBrec Other Attendees: Melissa Lind; Jen Strama; Larry Brandl; Rhonda Rudolph Approve Minutes: Hansen moved to approve the minutes of the January 28, 2021 meeting. Seconded by Thiede. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Approve Agenda: Thiede moved to approve the agenda with 9 items; Knoll seconded. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Incode / Executime: We are working with Incode to finalize pay codes for county departments. TASO is the most complicated department. Another hurdle is Human Services requiring 100% time reporting. This will add an extra step in timesheet entry and Rhonda reports it is taking too long. Bub will stop at Human Services next week to see how it is going for them. She would like to investigate using the Time & Attendance Module in Incode to see if that will tie program codes and account numbers. Executime was purchased as an electronic time keeping service, not purchased to produce reports. Melissa will check with other counties that use Incode if they use Executime and how it interfaces with their project codes. Broadband Review: There are 32 sites around Taylor County that will be connected to Taylor County’s Broadband Network and the IT Department will be responsible to service them. Those calls would come to the IT Department, and IT would troubleshoot the issue and if needed contact WanRack. We will not support residential and businesses that are connected to the broadband network. Bub stated this will be extra work for the IT Department and questioned if job descriptions should be changed or if an additional employee would need to be hired. Lind stated she would report back to the committee after some time and discuss the workload situation. Remote Work Policy: The Remote Work Sub-Committee met to review the policy. There are a few changes. All work from home employees need to purchase a surge protector through the IT Department. All users working from home need an active VPN connection. Wireless Upgrade – Status Update: Equipment is ordered and set for delivery. This purchase was approved at budget time last year. A portion of the purchase is funded under the COVID Election Security grant. This upgrade will offer more throughput to end users. 2020 Carry Over Budget: Knoll made a motion to approve the 2020 Carry Over; Hansen seconded. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Adjournment: Hansen made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 11:04 a.m. Seconded by Knoll. The next IT Committee Meeting is scheduled for August 12, 2021, at 10 a.m. Information Technology Committee January 28, 2021 Online Zoom Meeting Call Meeting to Order: Hansen called the meeting to order at 10:00 A.M. Members Present: Thiede; Hansen; LaBrec; Bub; Members Absent: Knoll; Other Attendees: Melissa Lind; Jen Strama; Larry Brandl; Maire Koerner; Approve Minutes: Hansen moved to approve the minutes of the August 27, 2020 meeting. Seconded by Thiede. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Approve Agenda: Thiede moved to approve the agenda with 8 items; LaBrec seconded. All Ayes. Motion Carried. Incode Update / Completion Timeline: Incode went live the beginning of January. Per Joan Becker, our Tyler Tech Consultant, it’s going well. All budgets dating back to 2018 are in the system. Joan will be working with the general ledger and fixed assets this week. Employees are using the Employee Self Service portal to view paystubs and other information. The Treasurer’s office is now using Incode for receipting. Tracy will continue working on setting up ACH for more electronic payments. Vendors are being paid using Incode. Currently, Tracy is doing all payment processing. We are in the process of setting up ExecuTime for employee use. There will be a pilot group testing ExecuTime for at least two pay cycles. The last phase that needs to be implemented is personnel. This will take place after ExecuTime is fully launched. The Finance Committee approved extending the AS400 contract through 2021 since it is still being used for certain things. VPN / Remote Work: We are bringing more users onto the VPN. Human Services is requesting additional remote desktop sessions to access TCM. Melissa will get some numbers together to show the cost of more desktops, network drops and a larger switch at Human Services to appropriately respond to the request. IT Policy: Hansen made a motion to have County Board Supervisors added to the policy. Seconded by LaBrec. Bub would like to see all county board members using their county email addresses for communication instead of personal email addresses. 2021 Objective / Goals: Lind is working to replace the wireless access points and wireless radios. Incode setup will be complete in 2021. Broadband will be setup by the fourth quarter and will connect all county buildings. The goal is to have it up and running by October. Adjournment: Hansen made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 11:06 a.m. Seconded by Thiede. The next IT Committee Meeting will be scheduled as needed.