To kick off the launch of the new Cecil County Spending website, I poured over the FY2011 Budget Request from the IT department.
For context, I have managed a company help desk (250 employees) and have over 10 years of experience in web projects & technology related work.
I was pleasantly surprised by the degree of “leanness” in the IT budget. From what I can tell, they have cut their budget some from last year in the operating expenses area. Not sure how to compare the other areas, but overall, costs seemed well managed.
I congratulate the IT director for the work he does with such little staff. It demonstrates innovative thinking in finding solutions to the County’s IT needs. I think the IT department should be presented as a model for low-cost execution of services! Someone please tell me who is this IT director that I may send him a thank you card and a basket of cookies for his staff to enjoy.
The following comments are really tiny things, and considering I don’t have the inside knowledge of the issues being resolved, they may or may not be appropriate cuts to suggest. Nevertheless, in the spirit of citizenship and government of the people and for the people, I would like to present the following items for scrutiny and request further details be provided on these expenses. Click the “Read More” button to also download the actual PDF of the IT budget request.
If you are an IT professional and would like to post your perspective on the County’s spending, please do so!!
Summary:
I found the Cecil County IT department budget, at $512,992, to be amazingly small for an organization the size of the Cecil County government. A staff of 10 for the size of the County organization is exemplary. Frankly, I am amazed that the Director is requesting considerable cuts to his FY2011 Operating Expenses budget.
OPERATING BUDGET:
The County should consider using technology to eliminate the need for travel, or at least, put a freeze to travel for a year considering the economy. This is a 50% reduction from last year’s budget.
Travel 5,000
RENEWAL DATA:
What is this about? Is the county paying for the Director’s home internet access? Why is it paid twice? At $63 per month, this is higher than their standard $57 per month for Comcast high speed internet. Why does the county pay more?
Comcast Cable 757.56 Director’s internet service
Comcast Cable 757.56 Director’s internet service
This is a nice training package, and I’m all for it, but this is an easy cut during a bad year. Use Google Search and the HUNDREDS of free tutorials available online for any particular area of need.
Lynda.com, Inc. 1,500.00 Online training.
Why is the county using Blackberry’s? Are these necessary? There are good competing services from all the mobile service providers that have all the functionality the County would need at a lower price. Additionally, we should not be giving County employee’s use of County phones for personal use/calls. This is a nice perk, but not one for tough economic times. And unless its for employees that are on the road or remote, I’m curious as for what is the need for remote email access on phone for employees?
Research in Motion 1,499.00 BlackBerry Service Support & 11 end users
Research in Motion 613.00 BlackBerry Service Support & 11 end users
The county should be using open-source helpdesk software. I would be glad to suggest a few. Their developers should be able to modify it and “secure” it to fulfill any enterprise level requirements. I ran a help desk for a 250 employee company using the standard Microsoft Outlook “task request” feature. No need to be paying this sort of money.
Numara Software, Inc. 5,024.66 Helpdesk Ticketing Software Support
Numara Software, Inc. 4,825.00 Helpdesk Ticketing Software Support
If this is the yearly fee for website domain, it seems high. I am curious how many domains are being managed for this price?
SiteGround $95.40 1 year domain hosting
Easy low-hanging fruit. If we get enough of these, it can ad up to a good number. Are our public schools not doing their job in making sure County employees can do spell checking on their own?
TextTrust $299.95 Auto Website Spell Checking
This is high! I’m curious to what is the bandwith consumption? Is the County hosting its own webservers within the County building? Why is the two records for network/internet? What is the County getting in services for this price? How many employee work stations are serviced as part of the County network, and do all employees need internet access?
Verizon (MCI) 108,000.00 Network/Internet
Verizon (MCI) 104,600.00 Network/Internet
I’m guessing this is for testing purposes. I would cancel this–the amount of people still using AOL is to small to matter.
AOL 239.40 CecilCounty AOL Service
Josue:
Thanks so much for this informative piece about one of the Cecil County budget requests. It is so hard for the public to get insightful information on budget requests since the media doesn’t offer any subtantial coverage on this important matter and forget anything approaching analysis. The small amount of ink that is allocated to the important issue generally just comes from whatever quick, soundbyte political leaders and professional staff offer up on the matter as overworked reporters have to move on the next issue and don’t have time to dig into something. (That’s one of the reason these closed door meetings bother me so much.)
After reading your excellent news article on the IT department I felt that I’d been fairly informed by someone knowledgable about the matter and I did critically read the material (as I do with most things.)
Keep the coverage coming since citizens need it. If someone will report, I’ll decide, but it when it’s filtered for me I won’t know what’s going on so I can particpate as an informed decision, from whatever political perspectives I have on issues.
And before people start emailing me, it’s not because anyone is hiding the data, it’s simply a failure on the part of media outlets to cover these things with any amount of detail, largely because publishers have decided not to fund a sufficient number of reporters to cover a beat. If asked county government is good about making the data available in the budget arena, but there is such complexity to the subject that we need substantial coverage and analysis of the issue.
Looking forward to more pieces to help keep me informed. It’s very challenging to be informed on local governmental matters of importance these days.