Oakland County to move to oaklandcountymi.gov; IT outlines new budget allocation process

Oakland County’s information-technology team told commissioners it will move the county website and email addresses from oakgov.com to oaklandcountymi.gov to strengthen cybersecurity and align with federal guidance.

Tammy Shepherd, business relationship manager for Information Technology, said the change follows recommendations from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and requires that only legitimate governmental entities use a .gov domain. Shepherd said the county will engage a vendor to change domain management and will maintain indefinite redirects from the old domain so existing email addresses continue to route.

The administration framed the switch as a security step to make it harder for malicious actors to clone county pages or spoof email addresses. Margaret Gupta, speaking in public comment, said switching to .gov reduces liability risks when county employees use county-hosted email across functions including judiciary offices.

Shepherd also presented the quarterly IT development and billing report and explained the county’s quarterly process for allocating IT labor and costs into the budgets of individual departments. “At the beginning of the fiscal year the budgets are set to zero,” Shepherd said. “We amend the budget in arrears to account for exactly what we spent in that area.” She said the practice is being reworked so departments will see clearer, forward-looking allocations.

Commissioners asked for a concise narrative and better exhibit keys in the IT service agreement report; the administration said it will deliver a more transparent allocation model and hopes to have guardrails in place by October. The board approved the IT report and the communications bundle without dissent.

What’s next: staff will return with timeline materials and a plan for the domain migration, and IT committed to provide clearer budget documentation ahead of the next budget cycle.