Network upgrades coming for county government

Polk County is one step closer to a safer, updated network thanks to the board of commissioners reviewing the various bids they received for network switches.

Since they connect various computers to the network, the switches are fundamental in making sure the county’s various employees can send emails, back up data, and use the internet.

Faulty, older switches were a catalyst in internet troubles that shut down the sheriff’s office and much of the county, and the commission is avoiding a network ‘heart attack’ by updating their technology.

According to commissioner and bid committee member Scotty Tillery, the group received offers from Logitech for $27,260, SHI for $19,564, Vertex for $15,747 and Howard Technologies for $23,000.

As the lowest bid, the group approved Vertex as the vendor, but official voting was reserved until the Aug. 7 meeting where it was unanimously approved.

“It takes 30 days for those to be manufactured and shipped,” county IT director David Smith said. “I plan to do the install after hours so normal county functioning should not be interrupted. The only thing that would probably be impacted would be the sheriff’s office, police department, and 911, but I plan to do those first and it would be only momentary.”

Mobilizing senior citizens was also a prominent issue for the committee that sought out bids on a minivan.

Tillery said the Bus Center of Atlanta offered the lowest price at $61,094, and the company’s bid was also unanimously approved during the Aug. 7 meeting.

With the opportunity to appoint a member to the Highland Rivers board, the commissioners were briefed on the subject by member Melanie Dallas who mentioned the company provides mental health and recovery services, addiction treatment and recovery services, substance abuse services, supported employment, addictive disease treatment, and much more.

Dallas mentioned the staff has grown to reach upwards of 700 members while still bringing in an annual 8-fig- ure salary. From Polk County alone, the business served 11,000 distinct individuals across 25,000 different services.

“I think we do a great job of providing services,” Dallas said. “But, any mental health institute is artificial environment, and recovery really happens in communities. So, if we’re not working together to really identify what keeps people from a life of recovery, they have to voluntarily come to us- even though recovery happens in communities.”