General Government & Information Technology

General Government / It Committee Meeting Summary Wednesday January 20, 2016 The following voting persons were present: Chair George D. Alpogianis, Village Manager Steven Vinezeano, IT Director Bill Shaw and Cammy Fortuna. Staff present were; Marlene Victorine, Hadley Skeffington-Vos, Cathy Spadoni, Hayley Garard, Kathy Thake, Katy Darr, Kathy Barnat, Steve Cusick, Joe Penze - Deputy Police Chief, and Rich Wlodarski - Community Development Assistant Director. One member of the public was present, Resident Louella Preston and one member of the press was present, Igor Studenkov I. Call to Order - The meeting was called to order at 8:41 a.m. in Room 218 at the Niles Administration Building. II. Approve Meeting Summary - General Government / IT Committee – December 23, 2015 a. Unanimous approval. III. Old Business a. Proposed Ordinance Regarding Truck Parking on Side Streets Tabled - This Ordinance will not move forward at this time. A large number of businesses would be negatively impacted and there is no answer on how to prevent that at this time. b. Proposed Ordinance of Parking on Residential Streets This Ordinance will be moved to the Board for approval at the January 26, 2016 Board Meeting. Further research shows only two cabs do not have private parking spaces and have found suitable parking. c. Take Your Child to Work Day Information will be gathered for the next General Government /IT meeting to bring this item back for discussion. This is a positive idea, but further discussion is necessary. The idea will also be discussed with Legal to set parameters. National Take Your Child to Work day is the 4th Thursday of April. IV. New Business a. Rain Barrel Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) The Board will vote in January on an IGA with Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) to supply free rain barrels to Niles residents who qualify for the program. The resident will need to fill out an application with Community Development. A pre- inspection will need to be done by Community Development to see if the resident qualifies to be in the Rain Barrel Program. If approved the resident can choose a color (choice of four colors) and a Rain Barrel will be delivered by a vendor of MWRD to the  resident’s home. The barrel will need to be installed by the resident. The projected start date is March 1, 2016. The Village will report to MWRD a year later as to how many barrels have been distributed and any feedback by the residents on this project. If successful, the Village will continue this program every year. There will be no cost to the Village. b. Sell/Dispose of Property in Public Works Building A lot of equipment is stored at the Old Maintenance Garage. Decisions must be made to dispose of, sell or re-use the old equipment. Several items have been approved to be disposed of; this will go to the Board in January for approval. IT has old items stored in a storage room on the second floor. IT discards / recycles its old equipment yearly. This will be targeted for the February or March Board Meeting. Items are either discarded or recycled yearly and in larger quantities. This process is usually done for free by a qualified recycler and it keeps the storage here less cluttered. IT and Police will maintain a storage area in the Old Maintenance Garage. c. Amend Waste Code to Remove the Dumpster Permit Fee The Village will be removing language from the current ordinance that has a fee associated with the permit for a dumpster. Whether commercial or residential, all dumpsters must be rented through Groot, and must be placed on private property. In rare circumstances when this is not possible, Community Development will do an inspection for approval. Groot will lay plywood under the dumpster so there is no damage to driveways or streets and also supply signage and safety equipment if the dumpster must be placed in a public right of way. This program is a win - win for residents, businesses and the Village. d. Economic Enhancement Ad Hoc Committee Ideas The first meeting of the Economic Enhancement Committee was held on January 12, 2016. Ideas were presented by staff, and the Committee will decide on which items to move forward with and require further research. Approximately 45 items were submitted and discussed. The next Economic Enhancement Ad Hoc Committee meeting will take place on February 2, 2016. e. Discussion of Village Longstanding Contracts / Service Agreements We have contracts that are in place and contracts that we may want to put in place. We need to look at new ideas where the Village can save money and obtain better service. This topic should be piggy-backed with the Economic Enhancement Ad Hoc Committee. IT has many contracts including phone and internet. In the last three years, IT has worked with Finance on restructuring the phone contracts, resulting in the Village saving $100,000 plus per year. All licenses and contracts are renegotiated every year. f. IT Projects 1. Max Galaxy – software that was approved by the Board in 2015 for Fitness, Senior and Teen Centers. The project is off the ground and running, to the point of data conversion, credit card merchant accounts, new equipment coming in and training is being scheduled. The goal is to have all three systems up and running by April. The new software will be much more powerful and efficient. Websites will be released for all three centers that will allow for online program registration and flexibility in services. The whole training will be kept at $9,000.00. The credit card processing that we have now is EPAY through the State of Illinois. A cost comparison was done and a new gateway and clearing house has been chosen in order to get lower fees for the Village of Niles. 2. Image Trend – New Fire, EMS and Inspection System – software that was approved by the Board, and will replace Fire House software that is over 20 years old. This brings on board inspections with Community Development fire inspectors that was not part of the old system. The new software integrates emergency medical services with fire incidents. This software should be up and running by the end of this fiscal year 3. Document Management – over a half dozen packages were looked at. Content Central by Ademero had the best solution and submitted the lowest price. It will address document management that the Village needs including public access, board meeting archival, and FOIA. IT is working on getting a proposal put together for approval; the cost is just under $20,000.00. Part of the software for the future is more access for the public including online form submissions. 4. The new WIFI system is being installed in all Village buildings; the concern is giving employees wireless access but keeping it secure. The public, guests and vendors also have wireless access through this system. The Village buildings are being redone with Wi-Fi, mapping where hot spots should be placed for the best overall coverage. The new Wi-Fi will work like a cell tower for seamless transition between antennas when moving about the buildings. Village Hall has been converted except for Council Chambers; a lift will need to be brought in to reach all areas that need to be changed. 5. Affordable Care Act Reporting – 1095-C forms will be ready to go by the end of January. A company was found that can complete the process. A lot of confidential and sensitive information was needed to be compiled for this reporting process. A letter will be drafted and sent out to all employees with the 1095-C forms. 6. VDI – Virtual Desktop – over a decade ago the IT Department started to convert all physical servers to be virtual. There was a large upfront cost in licensing and hardware – however there was a tremendous savings over time, in cost and time, to manage over 80 servers across all Village buildings. The next step is to virtualize our desktops. With going virtual many computers can be converted more effectively and efficiently as a group instead of individually. One master computer will be kept up to date so when the time comes for many units to be updated, the changes can  be made through the master computer. There will be a significant cost savings to the Village over the next five years. Hopefully this process will also extend the life of the hardware. Employees will have full access to their computers in more places, including laptops, tablets and BYODs (Bring Your Own Devices). V. Open Discussion / Public Comment Concern was shared over BYODs to be used for Village uses. Arts and Culture was not on the Agenda. Two meetings were scheduled to close in time, rushing one meeting and delaying the second. VI. Next Meeting – Wednesday February 24, 2016 at 8:30 A.M. VII. Adjournment – The meeting was adjourned at 9:21 A.M.