Minutes - Council Work Session - 10/26/2021

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Councilmember Musgrove referenced IT Manager Frederickson’s comment about the Police Department and asked if IT right now supports the technical computer networking needs of the Police Department as well. IT Manager Fredrickson confirmed this and added they are also responsible for the Fire Department, Public Works, and City Hall. Councilmember Woestehoff referenced the new position and the instance where LOGIS has taken several months to address needs. He asked if this new position is intended to not only offset the cost but also the speed of LOGIS so the City wouldn’t remain vulnerable for such a long time. IT Manager Frederickson confirmed this. Councilmember Woestehoff stated he supported this role but had concerns that the description as written would require finding someone who is a good systems person and a good network person, which would be difficult because they are different things. He felt the position would be the right step for security but from a systems administration standpoint, a network administrator would be a different role for years from now. Mayor Kuzma asked if the Council had questions or objections to the new positions. Councilmember Howell referenced the new positions and the expenditures, noting it is a big expenditure. She felt in regard to the Parks Maintenance Worker, that there are ways they could be creative with putting in natural grasses and wildflowers to cut down on park maintenance time. In regard to the Security position, she asked if they had looked at other cities that use providers other than LOGIS. IT Manager Fredrickson answered he looked at third parties as far as what it would take to fulfill the security side of this role, such as CIT which comes with mixed reviews from other cities. The CIT intro package included a list of recommendations for security measures that needed to be met and giving it back to the staff to do, with a cost of around $15,500 to just do that. He noted that bringing on one of their people for a couple hours a week to do active security work and remediation would be closer to the cost of this position, between $60,000- $80,000. Councilmember Woestehoff commented from a market perspective, he would concur that LOGIS is probably the cheapest option out there, noting they bill at $125 per hour, which is about $50 less than what they bill for some of their clients. He stated the City is not getting a bad deal with LOGIS but at the size and scale that the City operates, it’s advisable to have a dedicated systems person. Councilmember Specht asked, for comparison, what size of IT staff do other cities have. IT Manager Fredrickson answered that he has spoken with several neighboring cities about the size of their IT staff and learned that Elk River is at four, Coon Rapids also had four, and Andover had two to three staff members. City Council Work Session / October 26, 2021 Page 11 of 15