Bartholomew County officials continue their work on rebuilding the county’s IT department. The entire department quit last year due to various grievances. Since then, county commissioners have contracted with Sharp Business Systems to keep the various county systems maintained. Carl Lienhoop, county commissioner, talked about the IT department’s current status during Tuesday night’s county council work session. He explained that money budgeted for the IT department needs to be moved…

The council is expected to move $60,000 from IT department salaries to cover the nearly $20,000 per month cost for the Sharp contract. Lienhoop says this is enough to cover the first quarter of this year. He also noted that this contract is in place through September. Lienhoop says that the commissioners hope to have a better idea on how to move the department forward by the end of March. He told the council that, regardless, there will likely need to be an additional appropriation to cover the IT expenses for the remainder of the year, be it for additional consulting expenses, or for new employees.

While 2016 was a bad year for the county’s IT department, Lienhoop says that there was a bright spot in the hiring of Scott Mayes as the new IT director. Mayes was also at Tuesday night’s county council work session. He talks about his long-term goals for the department…

Mayes also talked about updating the department’s job descriptions and adjusting the pay-scale to better attract the right employees.

The county council is expected to discuss the IT department issue further when they meet Tuesday, Jan. 10.