Outsourcing Age

Genesee County commissioners consider outsourcing computer services as Web site problems continue

Author: OutsourcingAge Editor

GENESEE COUNTY — The county could outsource its computer and information services and the chairman of the Board of Commissioners says continuing problems with the county’s Web site aren’t helping the cause of those who want to keep the service in-house.

“I think they are building a case for why it needs to privatized,” said Jamie Curtis, chairman of the county commission. “I’m frustrated by it. I’m sick and tired of it.”

Curtis has made no secret that he’s not impressed by the county’s Web site overall, saying it puts this area at a competitive disadvantage because it doesn’t measure up to other counties in terms of information of ease of use.

Last week’s Web site crash, which disabled Web pages for the register of deeds, treasurer and other offices, continued off and on for several days and also raised questions about the reliability of the internet offerings.

A sub-committee of the county board approved what they hope will be a short-term Web site fix by agreeing to hire a former employee from the Management Information Services Department on a contract basis.

Commissioner Archie Bailey, D-Flushing, said in the long term, “there are going to be some more changes.”

The MIS Department oversees and coordinates all county information resources — from the Web site to the county’s telephone system to copiers and printers.

After layoffs earlier this year, there are 15 employees remaining on staff, said Information Services Director Joseph C. Heimbach, who’s been asked to help develop a request for proposals to potentially replace the department he oversees.

Heimbach said the the recent Web site problems were caused by a faulty Web server, and said problems unique to the register of deeds office have persisted through Thursday.

Register of Deeds Rose Bogardus on Tuesday blamed commissioners for Web site problems, saying they were the fallout from a countywide hiring freeze.

“As a co-elected officer, I strongly urge you not to privatize that department,” Bogardus said. “I believe the projected savings are grossly overestimated.”

Heimbach said he’s investigated privatizing some functions of the office but fears a company will offer a low price to take over the full job only to raise rates later.

Curtis said he hasn’t reached a final conclusion about whether the county can reduce payroll and improve services by privatizing some or all of the MIS Department but said people noticed the county’s technology shortcomings for parts of two weeks and said the status quo “is not acceptable.”

Marilyn Wilson of Swartz Creek was among county Web site users who were frustrated by the problems.

Wilson performs genealogy research and routinely uses the our clerk’s marriage and death indexes.

“It was quite frustrating,” she said. “They need to make (fixing that problem) one of their priorities.”

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Tags: Options, Outsourcing Services, Service Providers

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 1:01 am and is filed under Individual News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.