IT systems in need of major overhaul

EL CENTRO — As the county continues to move forward to meet internal goals as part of the 2020 strategic plan, the Board of Supervisors this week approved a proposal for major and much network upgrades.

The scope of the project is to upgrade hardware and software within the county departments, increase storage capacity and invest in a remote backup. The total cost of the upgrades will be close to $1.2 million and the process is expected.

“The county network infrastructure is in need of a major upgrade to meet growing technology demands required by each county department in order to comply with the 2020 strategic plan,” said Information Technology Director Michael Carr.

The main concerns brought forward by Carr were the lack of storage capacity and the fact that the county does not have a disaster-recovery backup available. Currently, all departments’ data is stored in two locations within each department and is backed up in the county’s system, but lack a mobile backup in case the central system fails.

Another concern is the lack of data storage space available in the network, Carr told the board the network has approximately only 10 percent of data storage space available as of now.

The lack of storage has contributed to two critical failures in the last two months resulting in downtime and decrease in productivity and downtime. In total, more than 2,500 computers and 150 servers are expected to be upgraded as part of this project.

“The network is not where we need it to be if we are going to meet the goals of the 2020 strategic plan,” Carr said.

CDBG application

Also on Tuesday, the board began the process pertaining to the county’s application for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for next year.

For 2016, the county received a total of $3.4 million and a total of 10 activities were approved by the state to be included as part of the application from Imperial County.

Those include the Winterhaven Public Safety Facility, Subsistence payments, neighborhood cleanups, the telemedicine program from Clínicas de Salud del Pueblo, Imperial County Free Library, Poe Colonia sewer repairs, Palo Verde water system improvements, Winterhaven water treatment plan as well as supplemental program income activities like equipment for the Imperial County Fire Department.

The focal point, County Community and Economic Development Director Esperanza Colio Warren emphasized, is the limited number of options the county has for acquiring CDBG funds for next year. She said the program requires recipients to have spent 50 percent of the grants received in the previous year to be eligible.

For 2016, almost half of all the funds the county received are allocated to the Winterhaven Public Safety Facility which is currently in the process of downsizing the scope of work before requesting bids for the second time and therefore unable to apply for the full slate of funding.

“We’re not there because we’re using most of the funds for the Fire Station Facility, we have spent funds, but not the 50 percent,” Colio said.

The CDBG is a federal program, but since the Imperial County is in a non-entitlement community, it has to apply for those funds through the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

Colio noted that for this year there will be an exception and the jurisdiction, which have yet to spend half of allocated monies, will be able to submit a waiver in order to qualify for funding with the caveat that it would only be for a single project that is shovel-ready.

She said her department is trying to clarify to understand whether the county can move forward with funding for Colonias. During the hearing, she said the only project she could think of that may be able to be submitted before the Dec. 1 deadline is the Niland Fire Station.

The second hearing will be scheduled within the next 30 days, in which members of the community are welcome to make additional suggestions.