Cass County conditionally approves GIS staff-augmentation, IT seeks $20,000 to start migration to ArcGIS

Cass County's IT director, identified in the transcript as CJ, briefed the commission on a planned migration of county geographic information system (GIS) data from the Elevate platform to ArcGIS and Beacon. CJ described a staff-augmentation model in which a vendor-provided specialist would be on-site one day per month and provide remote support the rest of the month to build local capacity and teach county staff to maintain GIS layers.

CJ estimated the net annual cost at about $67,000 (roughly $45,000 currently paid to Elevate minus savings on special editing tools plus approximately $40,000 for augmentation). CJ asked the board to conditionally approve proceeding to the master service agreement with Beacon, subject to final approval by Jeff Stanton.

"What I would like to propose is that we move forward with the staff augmentation project," CJ said, and noted the county council had given a positive recommendation; CJ asked for about $20,000 extra this year to start the work.

Commissioner Speaker 2 moved and Speaker 3 seconded the conditional approval; the board voted in favor. Jeff Stanton indicated a small change in the agreement and will work with CJ before final sign-off. CJ also noted progress on document conversion and suggested departments must sign off on the converted records.

Next steps recorded in the meeting include final contract negotiation with Jeff Stanton, a request to the county council for the additional $20,000, and departmental sign-offs on data quality before cutover.