Score: +13
(16/15/3)
Butte County Grand Jury
• 2013-2014
County of Butte State of California Grand Jury
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings 15 findings
F1
Page 45
The County’s network went live in the late 1990’s. It has achieved a greater than 99 percent uptime. The continuous operation of the network is critical to all departments within the County.
F2
Page 45
The Butte County ISD’s Information Technology Strategic Plan was prepared in 2005 and has not recently been updated.
F3
Page 45
Currently ISD is preparing to launch Lync™, a unified messaging system, to leverage the County’s fiber data infrastructure and to deploy VoIP technologies onto the BCI network.
F4
Page 45
ISD’s strategy is to maintain an industry standard of a maximum 5-year technology refresh rate of enterprise class server equipment and a 3–5 year refresh rate of network infrastructure routing and switching equipment.
F5
Page 45
Since the FY 2008-2009 budget reductions, most of the infrastructure hardware life has been extended to 10+ years (core router and switching equipment), which is beyond its normal life span.
F6
Page 45
The core router was replaced in FY 2013 with funds made available from Homeland Security Grants.
F7
Page 45
With the implementation of the Microsoft® Lync™ unified messaging system, the County networked devices will increase to over 12,000+ units.
F8
Page 45
Without additional staff resources, ISD will continue to be overburdened with support issues.
F9
Page 45
The loss of key ISD employees would be catastrophic to the County. Loss of their valuable knowledge, experience, and commitment would be a major setback to the functionality of the department.
F10
Page 45
The IS Department provides mission-critical services and support to most County departments. Loss of ISD support to any of these departments would greatly impair their ability to conduct County business.
F11
Page 45
The current adopted budget FY 2013-2014 for ISD is 0.85 percent of the total County budget, down from 1.42 percent in FY 2008-2009.
F12
Page 45
For the last 10 years the IS Department has been given increased duties and responsibilities, and its budget has remained flat (increase of 0.08 percent), while the overall County budget has increased by $200,000,000 (61 percent) (see Appendix B).
F13
Page 46
The County’s radio communication relies on outdated equipment installed on St. John Mountain (located in Glenn County) which is costly to support.
F14
Page 46
Of the County’s older personal computers 500+ are still operating on the Windows XP system and will require upgrades in order to function in the upgraded Active Directory.
F15
Page 46
Two full-time employees are dedicated to network security, monitoring against unauthorized users, and filtering for SPAM and viruses, while receiving over 800,000 Internet messages monthly.
Recommendations 8
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R1Page 46Butte County should develop the ISD Information Technology Strategic Plan to reflect new technology developments and new support services needed. It should be reviewed annually in order to respond to any unanticipated need or development opportunity.
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R2Page 46Butte County should provide adequate resources to ISD to ensure the network infrastructure is at the industry standard refresh rate of 3-5 years for technology and hardware.
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R3Page 46Butte County should diligently search and pursue available grants from any and all sources to fund necessary infrastructure upgrades.
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R4Page 46Butte County should allocate funds to rehire or replace ISD positions eliminated after budget cuts were implemented in FY 2008-2009 and allocate additional positions to support expanding workloads.
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R5Page 46Butte County should acknowledge the importance of the IS Department and its role, which is mission critical, to the citizens of Butte County and most County departments.
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R6Page 46Butte County should commit to fund ISD, for the next five years, at a minimum rate of 1.75 percent of the total County budget, with a goal of 3 percent within 10 years.
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R7Page 47Butte County should acknowledge the problems with the St. John Mountain radio system and take steps to replace the antiquated equipment before total system failure.
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R8Page 47Butte County must acknowledge that it has in excess of 500 personal computers that have outdated operating systems in use. It is recommended that the County consider a lease arrangement, or the outright purchase, to assist departments in the replacement of outdated machines, which will be required for compatibility with the new Active Directory.
Conclusions 4
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CL1 Page 24The Grand Jury did not detect any material accounting exceptions noted in the Independent Auditor’s report that had not been appropriately responded to by the County. The governing body indicated above should be aware that the comment or response of the governing body must be conducted subject to the notice, agenda and open meeting requirements of the Brown Act. Reports issued by the civil Grand Jury do not identify individuals interviewed. Penal Code §929 requires that reports of the Grand Jury do not contain the name of any person or facts leading to the identity of any person who provides information to the civil Grand Jury.
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CL2 Page 5[This page left blank intentionally]
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CL3 Page 262013-2014 BUTTE COUNTY GRAND JURY REPORT BUTTE COUNTY INFORMATION SYSTEMS SUMMARY We live in a world where business and government are reliant and dependent on technology. This is a world where technology is constantly evolving and being updated. Butte County government is also reliant and dependent on various levels of technology for all functions within each department. No matter what level of technology or type of application each department utilizes, they all have common demands such as: interagency communications; telephone and radio communications; common electronic mail (e-mail) services; Internet access; local area network (LAN) support; and network security. These functional areas are the fundamental responsibility of the Butte County Information Systems Department. Though these support systems are quite complex, both management and staff take for granted that these services will always be available and reliable. A conservative view of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is many times assumed when everything works well and efficiently. With evolving technology, this axiom not only does not apply, but can contribute to future failure and will be far more costly to repair or replace when the infrastructure collapses or reaches its maximum capacity. The Grand Jury found three specific areas that could present concerns for the Board of Supervisors and Administration. The first is that the County’s network system is past its prime and quickly becoming outdated. Second, the system is continuously under attack by hackers. Third, there is no long-range plan to provide financial support to create and maintain a safe and secure network system.
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CL4 Page 152The Grand Jury found enthusiastic, dedicated school administrators and staff who are providing quality educational opportunities for students in the rural school districts in Butte County. There are benefits and challenges for each of these districts. Some of the benefits include: the children are fortunate to receive greater individual attention as a result of the low student-to-teacher ratio, there is a caring family atmosphere within the school community, and students are able to remain in their local community. These districts face challenges: inadequate funding to support a wide range of programs, fluctuating enrollment affecting staffing and classroom configurations, and remote locations limiting access to educational and extracurricular activities.
Agency Responses 2
Government agencies' official responses to this report's findings and recommendations. Click on a response to see the structured breakdown.