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IT Questions
Town Board Faces The Politics Of Computer Oversight

ELLENVILLE – Word about deep problems in the way that the Town of Wawarsing has been upgrading its IT system — its computers and digital recordkeeping and networking and such things — has been circulating since at least last autumn's election. Questions were raised about the ways in which contracts were secured, votes taken, and progress overseen. Stacks of papers including various resolutions, contracts, work proposals, invoices, Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, and memos were passed around as part of a whisper campaign that surfaced briefly at one Meet the Candidates event... and then disappeared.

This winter, one former contractor for the town started passing over papers to us here at the Gunk Journal. We talked to some of the people involved and others, inside and outside town government. It seemed a big story was at hand, but not like everyone was expecting. It had to do with the nature of basically volunteer boards, elected into office, oversee some things they don't know much about. And behind that, how fast the world of IT — the entire computer age — is taking us in new directions we're not fully trained to understand.

But then we were told by all we talked with to wait. There would be a meeting. Some key information was missing. Things might not be as they seemed, or at least as they had been related to us.

That meeting took place this past Monday afternoon, April 21, at Wawarsing Town Hall in the form of a regular workshop meeting with all board members, the town clerk, the highway superintendent, assessors and former supervisor Scott Carlsen all crowded into the town supervisor's office. IT consultant Eric Aleksandryants of Taleks Info Systems, who lives in Ulster Heights but works downstate and in New Jersey — and was first hired by current supervisor Lenny Distel in 2011 but granted the job of fully updating the town's systems in 2012 — presented a four-page series of explanations and answers about all he's been doing, and still has to do, to complete his work for Wawarsing.

"When I first came in here there were a bunch of old computers on different operating systems, no one was on a network, there was no one connected to Quickbooks , and people had old Windows 95 or XP systems that are no longer supported now," Aleksandryants explained. "I had to move a lot of documents, build a lot of new computers for everyone. Now everyone's on the same page."

Questions had been raised about the $145,000 to $175,000 the whole upgrading would take, its timeline, as well as a further $3,200 that Aleksandryants gets each month for maintenance and upkeep purposes, plus $300 a month for updating the town's public access channel and website, both of which seem to happen very little.

The consultant, who appeared very familiar with all the town officials and employees, went over a long list of things he'd been doing for each department — for an overall cost of $65,000 paid to him to date, plus $25,000 to another firm for wiring everyone together, plus what still needed to be done for another $85,000. The latter includes huge amounts of data entry and upgrades for the town's building and assessment offices, the better to keep up with home tax assessments once a new reval (the town's first in decades) is completed. Plus new digital platforms for the town's highway and other departments.

Late delivery of some needed materials from county and state real property service departments was noted, along with other setbacks. Aleksandryants mentioned several times, with backup from employees, about how he'd built computers himself, had had to design and write code for his own applications to get info translatable off older machines, and a number of items he never billed for.

Carlsen, at one point, asked why invoices from his administration had been included in the info packets requested and passed around. And why all this had to be discussed yet again when at least half the board had been in on biweekly discussions about the same matters for the previous two years. The former supervisor was defeated by Distel, who he himself narrowly defeated in 2011, last November.

"Am I missing something here?" he asked.

"We have two new board members, including a new supervisor," replied deputy supervisor and Carlsen's former fellow board member, Terrie Houck, who sought the Republican Party nomination against his supervisor late last summer. "Isn't it helpful to have an update?"

Aleksandryants explained that what he had been doing for the past year and longer was to ensure the town's IT infrastructure was sound. Now he could fine tune software and data entry. He pointed out how new computers would have to be bought and installed every five to seven years. The board seemed to agree without protest.

As for the $3,200 fee each month, the consultant said that involved 10 to 15 hours over three days each week, during which he was on call for any problems that might arise. He noted that there had been no virus attacks during that time.

"You guys are the ones that asked if that would be enough," he noted. "You increased it to that amount."

As for the $300 public access and website updating fee per month, Aleksandryants noted how any updates had to come through the supervisor's office; deciding what would stay or go wasn't in his purview.

In other discussion, he brought up how he'd been working to have each department responsible for its own web pages. Such things, though, needed board policies to be set.

"I took the job because you guys were having a lot of problems," he said.

Carlsen and former deputy supervisor Dan Johnson expressed appreciation for the contractor, as did board member Stephen Bradley. Current IT liaison Mike Durso, a newcomer to the board, said nothing.

"I'm glad you're on board," noted Distel.

Later, Houck spoke about the politics of the meeting and wondered whether the costs were too high, especially for the monthly fees. He was reminded that most towns set committees to oversee public access, and websites too in many cases. Such things had to be decided by the board.

Aleksandryants smiled at everyone and chatted with the office staff.

Maybe this was a story about the nature of basically volunteer boards overseeing things they didn't know much about and the speed of changes in the new computer age after all.



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