Continuous Network Outages Concerning City Department Directors

Editor's note: Alderman Vance Skinner clarified Wednesday morning that ITAC is in favor of an assessment but has concerns about the company conducting the assessment because of its references including smaller municipalities. Skinner, who has a background in the IT world, said Wednesday he believes the company is not well known in the  local IT industry and municipal government references are limited to smaller communities with less infrastructure.

"It is questionable," Skinner said. "I am going to have concerns about this forward."

With city department heads citing growing frustrations and problems with network outages, the Waukesha Common Council approved a $10,000 expenditure Tuesday night to conduct an assessment of the city’s information technology system.

Centurion Data Systems, based in Pewaukee, is being asked to determine the system’s current state and identify gaps and areas of concerns.

Deputy Police Chief Mark Stigler said during the meeting that he believes an “initial snapshot” given from the assessment will help to identify the manner and scope of problems.

“We are the staff that use the IT department to make sure the efficient running of each of our departments is taking place,” Stigler said.

A memo from City Administrator Lori Luther states the city has been having ongoing network outages and support issues for the past six months. Commentary during the Common Council meeting indicated there have been problems with the city’s phone system going down as a result, in addition to multiple other issues.

Luther said in the memo that while the IT department has been "working diligently" to address the problems, it is her “professional opinion that review from an outside consultant looking at these issues from a high level and from a user perspective would be advantageous to the department and the organization as a whole.”

The outages are resulting in thousands of dollars in lost time, Alderman Paul Ybarra said.

“Long periods of downtime is a concern,” Ybarra said. “Interruptions mean our staff can not (provide) service (to) our residents. Staff can not use their phones, printers, access documents, software programs that they need, which results in loss of productivity.”

While the Common Council agreed the problems needed to be fixed and an analysis was needed, the depth of the analysis was debated. Ultimately, aldermen Eric Payne, Vance Skinner and John Kalblinger and Alderwoman Kathleen Cummings voted against the proposal.

Skinner, who chairs the Information Technology Advisory Committee, said during the meeting that the majority of the committee felt the city needed to go more in depth with the study and that by approving the $10,000 project, the work would be duplicated.

“My concern is what we are paying for and what we are going to get are going to be two separate things here and will take an additional steps,” Skinner said. “Let’s not kid ourselves. There are going to be gaps and opportunities identified regardless of who is doing this assessment.”

Luther confirmed during the meeting that IT Director Bret Mantey would also prefer a more in-depth analysis of the entire IT system. However the “operational” departments – meaning the departments like the police and fire department that require the system to be running at all times want to find a solution as soon as possible.

“All the user departments want to move forward quickly,” Luther said.

However, in the end, the 11 Common Council members moved the project forward in hopes to have the review completed in time for recommendations in the 2012 budget.

“This assessment is, in my opinion, the starting point for a more depth review of the city’s IT operation,” said Alderman Joe Pieper, which caused Skinner to shake his head in disagreement. “IT is certainly a critical department for the city where every department is connected to one another and to the public through the hard work of our IT professionals.

“Recently there have been challenges within the city’s network that have negatively impacted city operations and has led to loss in employee work time and a decrease in efficiencies. Department directors have expressed publicly their concerns about these challenges and when the professionals that manage the city raise an issue, it is our duty as a council to act to find a solution.”