Council has approved contracting a company to handle IT issues for the township.
At the May 13 meeting, council agreed to contract CopperTree Solutions Inc. to manage all municipal IT services at a monthly cost of $2,746. The contract also includes a one-time cost of $9,706 for equipment service and installation.
Finance director Yufang Du reported the township has grown past the stage where handling IT internally was feasible.
“The Township of Mapleton has a total of 29 PCs and two servers. There are no internal IT professionals to manage the daily IT operation,” Du stated.
“Currently, finance staff are in charge of all IT-related issues and utilize the services of an outside contractor when necessary.
“With the fast-paced IT changes, daily IT service needs and limited staff resources and with ever-increasing financial reporting and projects required by the federal and provincial government, our staff are finding it a challenge to keep up with the workload in both finance and IT areas.”
Du noted the township has been working with CopperTree Solutions (formerly WireQ Inc) since May of 2013, when a new server was installed.
Du noted she spends about 35 hours per month on IT-related work and deputy treasurer Teresa Armstrong also spends “a considerable amount of time” on IT.
In addition, Du explained, “We have been busy reacting to daily IT and cell phone issues from township staff.
“As the municipality has grown over the past few years and continues to grow, IT solutions are becoming more complex. Township staff do not have the expertise nor the time to address IT requirements.”
While agreeing with the need to relieve financial staff of the IT burden, councillor Andy Knetsch pointed out the contract would cost more than $30,000 annually and wondered why only one quote was presented.
Du explained staff have been working with CopperTree for about a year and “we’ve been really happy with them.
“Every time we have problem they come immediately,” said Du, noting other companies sometimes take a couple of days to respond.
CAO Patty Sinnamon reminded council staff did obtain quotes when purchasing the server a couple of years ago.
“The reason for single sourcing, if you will, is we did go through that process (tendering),” she explained.
Councillor Neil Driscoll noted the township has added an administrative assistant in the past year and wondered if that could help staff handle IT work in-house.
“That’s a lot of money when we are adding to our admin staff here,” said Driscoll.
“Honestly, that’s a completely different skill set,” replied Sinnamon.
She noted that relying on in-house staff means risking losing that knowledge if employees leave the township.
“I know we certainly have a lot more computers and computer equipment. It does get more complex,” commented Mayor Bruce Whale.
“We budgeted for this,” councillor Jim Curry pointed out.
When a vote was called, council approved the recommendation without opposition.
