EATON — The Preble County Sheriff’s Office was recently awarded two grants which will help keep its technology up to date.
During the Preble County Board of Commissioners’ meeting on Monday, Nov. 27, commissioners discussed both grants.
First, Administrative Assistant Kim Keller discussed a grant the department received from the Timken Foundation for computers. Sheriff Mike Simpson had sent her an explanation on how he hopes to spend the $40,000.
“The quote he has here is for two new servers, a new Microsoft license, two switches, and for DTGI to set it up. Now, he would like for you to waive all the quotes and just use DTGI, because they are the people who work on their computers,” Keller explained. “I don’t have a problem with them doing the work, I’m in agreement with them, DTGI are the people familiar with their computers so they should do the work.
“The hardware though? Usually, I have been able to get the same equipment, less expensively, then we can purchase it from DTGI. I definitely can get the software at a lesser cost, because we have that agreement with Microsoft. I can save them money there. I don’t know that I would encourage you waiving getting quotes on the equipment.”
She added, the Sheriff intends to move the office’s software to Office 365, but did not include the price of that in his quote. Keller warned commissioners that at some point someone from the department will have to come to them to ask for more money, either for Office 365 or an “exchange server.”
Keller explained, the department wishes to switch to Office 365, so they do not have to have their own email license and server. Commission President Chris Day pointed out PCSO email currently goes through the county’s server.
“I thought when we upgraded our server it was large enough to continue doing that?” he questioned.
Keller said, “That’s what I mean. We’re going to have to talk it through and see if they are aware of that. Their email is not hosted out there. We updated the server license here and it is large enough to continue hosting theirs. They are suggesting going to the Cloud so it will take care of their email problem. As a bonus, it will take care of having Office Professional.”
Day noted, they will have to have a meeting to further discuss the issue.
“I need someone a little more versed in this to explain what they want to do and why,” he said.
For the second grant, commissioners approved an agreement with the Sheriff’s Office in the amount of $16,995 for the Live Scan Equipment Subgrant Award from the Office of Criminal Justice Services.
Sheriff Simpson explained, “This grant will reimburse the county for the [mentioned] amount, for the purchase of a new live scan machine. The live scan machine is used daily when we book inmates in and process other types of fingerprints. We take fingerprints electronically for all inmates. Inmate prints are submitted electronically to the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab, BCI and eventually to the FBI.
“We have used this technology for many years. However, as with technology, it changes and updates to the equipment need to be done. This is the case here.
“We have been fortunate. The current machine was provided to the county using a grant through the Attorney General’s Office several years ago. We will be able to accomplish obtaining a new system with upgraded technology using grant dollars again.”
