Hurricane council weighs hiring IT staff after security incidents and 47 unsupported computers

Staff and council members spent part of the session addressing technology and cybersecurity needs after staff reported both inventory and security problems.

"We found out last week that we have 47 computers that will no longer be supported using Windows 10," a staff member said, adding that the city has machines nearing end‑of‑life and that an earlier ransomware incident had forced the city to rely on backups that later proved unreliable.

Council members and staff discussed options: hire a full‑time IT administrator, contract an outside provider, or hire a consultant for an initial year while the city assesses needs. Staff noted web‑site and online‑form upgrades have been quoted at roughly $50,000 per year by vendors and that moving some services to cloud providers could reduce on‑site server burdens — but that cloud migration has its own security tradeoffs, citing a neighboring entity that experienced a cloud‑account breach.

Why it matters: staff argued that centralizing IT oversight could reduce ad hoc maintenance costs, improve patching and backups, and lower the risk of future outages that have previously closed offices for days. Council members asked staff to explore costs and implementation steps and to return with options for a phased approach.