Pulaski County once again has a decision to make, when it comes to IT services. Back in July, the county commissioners disbanded the county’s IT department, and later agreed to contract IT services out to DeGroot Technology. Now, DeGroot has notified officials that it will stop providing services to the county in January.
On Monday, County Council Member Kathi Thompson urged the commissioners to once again hire an in-house IT professional. She said there’s enough money in the 2020 budget, and Tippecanoe County Chief Information Officer Kent Kroft would likely be willing to help come up with a job description and set up an IT advisory board. But Thompson stressed that the commissioners have to get moving in order to have someone in place by January.
Making matters worse, DeGroot apparently wasn’t always getting paid by the county by the work being done. Commissioner Kenny Becker assured Thompson that the issue has been taken care of. Auditor Laura Wheeler said she’d be able to come up with the necessary funds by transferring money that’s already in the budget, without the need for an additional appropriation.
Superior Court Judge Crystal Brucker Kocher stressed the importance of reliable IT services to the commissioners. She noted that her court can’t operate if the equipment doesn’t work, and she had to deal with a server outage last week.
Judge Kocher added that the state gave the county $25,000 worth of new computers, monitors, and scanners, as part of the upcoming switch in court software, but some of the equipment is still sitting in boxes because no one’s available to set it up. She said some of the computers that have been set up are getting viruses because they aren’t getting the proper updates.
Former Election Board Member Laura Bailey added that IT will be crucial for next year’s presidential election.
