MANSFIELD — It didn’t take new Mayor Jodie Perry long to figure out the city’s computer infrastructure — hardware and software — needs attention.
And that some outside eyes may be beneficial.
At her request, City Council on Tuesday evening approved a three-month agreement with ES Consulting from Ontario to help prepare a “preliminary technology upgrade plan.”
There is no cost to the city during the consultation period, though Perry told local lawmakers she may return with an “action plan” for improvements that will carry a yet-to-be-determined price tag.
Perry took office five weeks ago after the 12-year administration of former Mayor Tim Theaker. She and her staff has been dealing with IT issues for more than half of that time.
“I believe it was about three weeks ago now that we were here when we were having an IT issue that day. The long and short of it, there’s been a lot of long behind this, it was a firewall issue.
“We have that about 95 percent of the way fixed at this point, but there are some trailing issues that are coming along with that,” Perry told council in explaining legislation that was not in the packet sent to council members on Friday.
“This is of no fault (to anyone) at any point. In a city of this size, you’ve had different IT directors over the years, different systems that have been plugged into our overall system. We’re just now at kind of a critical point where we really do need some outside expertise kind of guiding us on the way forward,” the mayor said.
According to its website, ES Consulting has “been providing best in class IT services across the (United States) since 2001. With IT services ranging from help desk support, to server and infrastructure support, and all the way to complete business IT management, we have been able to experience the growth of the small and medium-sized businesses our team has partnered with.”
Perry said she hopes ES will help solve the final “5 percent” of the current firewall issue and also help with a plan going forward.
A formal agreement with the company is needed to take the next steps, she said, during which the company will have access to the city’s IT system.
“What investments should we make, do we need to tweak how our system is set, making sure that things are protected as well as they they can be. And when you’re getting into proprietary things, (we) do have to make sure that we’re protecting our liabilities and vice versa on them.
“I know this is coming at the last minute, and I promised you I wouldn’t do that very often. But this truly is for us to be able to close the initial issue with the firewall.
“This is a critical piece,” Perry said.
After the meeting, the mayor said ES Consulting would offer advice in both hardware and software.
“Basically it’s our structure and our setup. Anytime you have system put upon system upon system, we’re just at a point where we think that it’s time to just make sure that we’re looking more holistically across the city,” Perry said.
The mayor said she didn’t have an estimated price tag on what recommendations the company may make.
“They’ve given me some ideas of some software subscriptions and things like that, but a lot of that depends on the number of users. That’s easy enough to determine, but the number of units is a little harder. So that’s what we’re trying to work on right now,” she said.
At-large Councilwoman Stephanie Zader said she supported the mayor’s plan.
“It’s important that we have good people looking at this stuff. I can only speak for myself, but all of it’s above my pay grade. I can type and go to websites and stuff, but protecting a city is important.
“I know that when our technology went down, a lot of things happened that really put a huge burden on a lot of our departments. I had a water valve break right outside my house and they were trying to locate water mains and they couldn’t do that because our GIS system wasn’t working.
“There were a number of things that happened. So I am in support of this. and I also know that ES Consulting does a ton of work for a lot of big businesses in our community. I have the utmost respect for them and their firm and what they do,” Zader said.
