Responsibilities

The Information Technology Department’s role is to facilitate all municipal employees’ ability to leverage technology in the performance of their jobs. The IT Department is responsible for strategic planning, budgeting, project management, and daily operations of the data infrastructure of the town.

Strategic planning ensures that emerging technology and upgrades are compatible with existing equipment and software, and that new purchases are consistent with the needs of the departments. Budgeting ensures that expenditures are forecast properly and are vetted by Selectmen, Capital Planning, Finance Committee, and the town meeting. Project management ensures that all new initiatives are compliant with the commonwealth’s procurement laws and that vendors are accountable to deliver solutions on time and on budget. Daily operations ensures that the performance of all systems and software are functioning as expected and that issues are reported and rectified in a timely fashion to minimize negative impact on departmental operations.

Solutions

Most office employees have a PC assigned to them. Software is dependent upon the departmental function. Most PCs and all servers have been virtualized, making backup and restoration of system images permissible in the event of a disaster. Financial systems are managed at an off-site server, commonly referred to as cloud computing.

In addition to Microsoft Office, we support a host of solutions including Public Safety applications for dispatch, police, fire, and EMS reporting. Financial applications include general ledger, purchase requisitions and purchase orders, invoicing, tax billing, and property assessing. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been developed over the past 10 years to provide a method of capturing geo-based data that is easily rendered visually in maps.