2006-11-20 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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large enough to accommodate all the offices that will be moved into Aupuni Center, as well as the old County Building as offices move back there. All the phone lines will be eliminated. He said the infrastructure is there. Mr. Sakaguchi asked how much that would save per month, and Mr. Yugawa said possibly $4,000 to $6,000 per month. Mr. Sakaguchi asked why Mr. Yugawa was "avoiding" privatization, when he could work with an outside vendor, set up the specifications, and provide the oversight, and the vendor would do the work. Mr. Yugawa said the County's network use is highly technical. He could hire a company to maintain the network, but that would not improve the skills of his employees. His employees need to know how to network and troubleshoot. They need to be hands on. He asked why the County should pay for something that its own employees can do. Mr. Sakaguchi said the County could contract out and questioned why the County needs the employees, when it could keep a few of them and pay them more. Mr. Yugawa said that could be done, but pointed out that Mr. Sakaguchi had asked Nancy Crawford earlier about having another company do the payroll. The County did look into that, and some agencies on Oahu could do it. But all they would do is process the payroll and send the checks. They would not provide reports. The County would have to pay for a lot of "ala carte" things. If Data Systems' technology was transferred elsewhere, and there was a catastrophic event, his people would need to respond to it. Mr. Sakaguchi said the County is small at 2,000 and though there are safeguards and security issues, there must be a way around them. It takes the County such a long time to do things. He asked how the County could speed up the whole thing and said that privatization is a desperation measure. Mr. Yugawa said that was really a philosophical question. Mr. Sakaguchi said it was good to hear that the County was looking at new technology, and Mr. Yugawa said they had to and explained that there is a buzzword lately: "convergence of voice, video, data," and the County needs to move toward this. With the fiber network, they will be able to converge their networks and lower the cost of videoconferencing, Voice IP, etc. Ms. Nicholson said that Mr. Yugawa had mentioned two things that would be hard to do. One was suggesting that departments revisit their telecommunication costs and audit their lines, and the other was to standardize the internet security policy across the County. She asked what was hard about those things. Mr. Yugawa said it is hard to see what other people are doing. He explained that the Police Department is hooked up to the County, but it has a firewall. "They can come into us, but we can't come into them." The Prosecutor's Office also has a firewall. The County needs virus protection for its PC's, servers, and networks. He does not know if the Police Department maintains the same standard of virus protection, and it could put others at risk. He said the County's fiber network is hooked up to the State Building, and the State has a firewall on its end. The County received a call from the State in Honolulu, complaining that someone in the County was hammering their firewall. It turned out to be the Laupahoehoe Police Station, which had no virus protection. The County bought virus protection for the Police, but Data Systems does not know if it is being complied with, since they do not have control over it. He would like it to be consolidated under one standard. 13