East Windsor Selectmen Create One Year Position to Help With Computer Systems

The East Windsor Board of Selectmen Tuesday decided to create a one-year position for an informational technology person to help with the town’s updating of its computer systems.

First Selectwoman Denise Menard said the full-time person is needed for the year because of the upcoming big project.

“We have had significant challenges including the disaster with the financial server,” Menard said.

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The new higher would be someone who could work on their own and allow the town’s director of information technology, Tyrone Osoimalo, work on higher level projects. Menard said the person would hold the job for a year and town officials would determine if a longer commitment is needed.

Osoimalo said surrounding towns handle their computer systems with either full-time employees or using a consultant. If  East Windsor were to use a consultant, the town would likely pay $30-$60 an hour for two days a week, he said.

Menard said the town would be able to pay for the person because of savings in health insurance and money available in its IT accounts.

Osoimalo said the big project is to upgrade the town’s IT infrastructure. Osoimalo oversees the town’s and the schools’ computer system’s and technology. He said including himself there are three people overseeing about 720 computers, 35 virtual servers and eight physical servers in the public schools.

When the town’s financial server crashed, it cost about $15,000 in hours and hiring a consultant to recover the data, which was years of financial records, he said.

“The cost to restore was well worth it, to save the financial data,” Osoimalo said.

Selectman James Richards said he wants to make sure the job description for the position has clear goals and benchmarks so after a year he can look back and see if those were met.