Michael Marshall, the County’s IT Director told members of the County Council the phone upgrade project to VOIP (voice over internet phone) is about half way completed.
On Monday, Marshall said the funds he placed in this year’s budget were a basically a placeholder because the county wasn’t sure which direction they wanted to go last fall.
Now that they have made the decision to go with a local provider for the project, he needs additional funds to complete the work.
He asked to transfer $65,000 from the software maintenance line item in Cum Cap to the communications line item. Marshall said he would come back to the council at a later date, after the fund has had a chase to build back up and ask to have the software fund replenished.
The County Commissioners are supportive of the project and Commissioner Kevin Overmyer told the Council the phone upgrade is something they’ve been working on for a couple of years. He said having a local provider has proven beneficial, noting that the jail switch in January using another provider. He said they have had several issues since January and not all the phone lines are working correctly yet.
Marshall said this project will save the county $20,000 annually. He also noted that Hyperwave will be managing the phone system without being on our data network. Marshall said that has caused the project to be labor intensive because they are re-cabling for each phone. This will allow the two networks to operate without touching and allows Hyperwave the ability to remote manage their side of things without being on our data network.
The council approved the transfer request.
