Franklin Technology Commission approves information-services scope, will forward to common council

The Franklin Technology Commission on April 22 approved a revised Information Services "scope of services" document and agreed to forward the plan to the Franklin common council for consideration.

The plan, presented by a commission member, framed IT responsibilities with a Venn-diagram approach that groups security management (identity and access management, PAM, information assurance), incident management (incident response and disaster recovery), data-center and network operations, vendor management and cloud/application management. The presenter said the document preserves the prior vision and mission and organizes the department’s primary responsibilities.

Commissioners used the meeting to clarify what the city considers out of scope: physical security, video surveillance and audio-visual systems. "Anything that had to do with physical security is out of scope," the presenter said, adding that these functions have been handled by the Department of Administration or contracted vendors. Commissioners emphasized the need to identify who will own those out-of-scope systems so responsibilities do not simply migrate to IT.

A commission member said the document should be used to start a conversation with department heads so each department understands what it will now be responsible for. Another member said the presentation should remain broad for council conversations and not become a personnel or job-description discussion at this stage.

A motion to approve the scope of services as presented was made, seconded and approved on a voice vote. The commission asked staff to prepare a concise, visual presentation (including GIS examples) to accompany the packet when the item moves to the common council.

The Commission’s action is procedural: it approves the scope document for transmittal. The item will next appear before the Franklin common council for awareness and any related decisions.