| County board postpones technology project |
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| Wednesday, 01 July 2009 | |
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Managing editor The Anoka County Board has revived a major technology project that had been postponed late last year in anticipation of major budget cuts. The county’s Information Services Department had proposed to begin a project to migrate from Novell products, including e-mail and calendaring, to Microsoft products in early 2009. But when Gov. Tim Pawlenty unalloted a portion of the county’s program aid in December 2008 as part of balancing the state’s 2007-09 budget, the financial uncertainties forced the board to put off the project. Earlier this year the board and county staff took steps to make $3.7 million in permanent cuts to the county’s 2009 budget and the unallotment made by the governor last month to balance the state’s 2009-11 budget after he and the Legislature had failed to reach agreement did not impact the county as much as had been feared. That prompted the county board’s Fiscal Control Committee, which was established by the board at the beginning of this year to scrutinize spending on county projects and programs, to recommend now moving ahead with the migration project. The board unanimously approved a contract with Software House International for a state of Minnesota Microsoft enterprise agreement. The total cost of $1,757,381.02 will be spread over six years through 2014. For the first year beginning July 1, 2009, the cost to the county will be $277,055.24. The price tag under the contract is $278,030.78 for the second year, $284,967.19 for the third year and $305,775.94 for years four through six. According to Cindy Kevern, director of information services, entering into the agreement now allows the county to take advantage of promotional pricing which is good through June 30. The project includes network administration and directory services, file and print services, collaboration tools, e-mail and calendaring as well as word processing, spreadsheets and powerpoint. The agreement also includes an annual cost for software assurance, which provides the county the right to software upgrades and new releases, Kevern said. Kevern outlined the terms of the agreement. • It includes price protection over the six-year period and if the county needs to add licenses in this timeframe, the price is guaranteed at the current rate. • The county will be able to keep current with all new software upgrades and releases. • It allows for simplified licensing and tracking at an enterprise level, reducing the need to track licenses for each department. • The agreement includes a discount and provides a cost saving over the outright purchase of licenses. • Provides training credits for technical training, enterprisewide online training for Microsoft Office, home user licenses, employee purchase program and a subscription to technical documentation. • Additional security capabilities, streamlines tracking and staff efficiencies. • The agreement does not include licensing for the library or the juvenile corrections school, which will be purchased separately through education pricing. Besides e-mailing and calendaring, the migration was proposed to include network administration and directory services, file and print services and collaborating tools. Funding for the first year of the agreement is expected to come from the information services operating budget, plus revenues in the human services department operating budget set aside for the Microsoft products, as well as county reserve dollars. According to Kevern, the migration from Novell to Microsoft was recommended because of problems the county has been having with Novell. “Novell has gone in another direction and does not provide top-notch support,” Kevern told the county board in a memo late last year. “User problems are likely to grow.” Peter Bodley is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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