Budget Concerns Prompt Pulaski County Commissioners to Disband IT Department

The Pulaski County Commissioners have decided to disband the county’s IT Department. During Monday’s meeting, Commissioner Kenny Becker told IT Director Matt Voltz that the commissioners discussed the matter during an executive session last Thursday. “I guess we’re in the process of that the IT Department will be shut down July 1,” Becker said.

Budget concerns are the main reason for the change, according to Commissioner Jerry Locke. “I know the IT’s, I think, spent the full year’s budget within six months, if I recollect right,” he said, “and it seems like we’ve been contracting a lot of the IT work out that we thought should have been done in-house.”

The county created an in-house IT Department back in 2015, but Becker said county officials still haven’t quite figured out how to budget technology expenses accordingly. “Before, the departments had their own budget,” Becker told Voltz. “And then they gave it to IT, and I think that’s partly where we got into some trouble. You know, they’re buying stuff, and they don’t know what you’ve got in your budget.”

Going forward, the commissioners plan to once again hire an outside IT contractor.