City officials Tuesday authorized the purchase of updated Microsoft licenses for the city’s information services and internal communications.
City employees had been using a 2016 edition of Microsoft Exchange, which Director of IT Jim Hartsook said had become outdated, and the license for which was about to end in October. At that time, the transition to updated Office 365 licensing will begin.
The city appropriated $193,000 from an information services fund for the new software licenses and other upgrades, and they plan to use $116,748 of that budget annually to purchase 450 licenses. This number will fluctuate as users are added or taken away, according to Jim Hartsook, director of information technology.
The transition will allow officials to standardize communication across departments and increased security.
This change comes after the city experienced a data breach last July when online city payments and email services were disrupted for a short time. Officials have since constructed a plan to increase security for city officials, including the addition of a server.
Although there is not a distinct timeline for the addition of the server, Hartsook called the timeline “aggressive” The Republic reported previously.
