Five weeks after being tabbed as chief troubleshooter for the county on information technology, Kane County Transportation Director Jeff Dailey is recommending an existing hodgepodge of decentralized computer systems be scrapped in favor of building a standardized system from scratch.
At Dailey’s request the Kane County Board’s Administration Committee on Wednesday recommended that board Chairman Mike McCoy (R-Aurora) be given authority to approve up to $150,000 in computer-related contracts. The move would set the stage for replacing the failing technology Kane has assembled over the years.
Dailey’s request was his first since McCoy named him interim executive director for information technology Sept. 10. Dailey’s predecessor, Bob Carlson, resigned under pressure after being placed on administrative leave amid growing dissatisfaction over the county’s response to computer woes.
“It will be addressing at least a decade and a half of neglect,” said Administration Committee member Gerald Jones (D-Aurora) of Dailey’s request.
Dailey declined to speculate about the projected cost of upgrading and standardizing the county’s computer technology, but he did say it could take as much as a year to complete. The proposed initial expenditure of up to $150,000 for new wiring, equipment and consulting services “will set the stage for what we are going to need to do in the long run,” Dailey said.
Dailey said county departments’ computer problems reflect the use of outdated equipment as well as seven different operating systems.
“We’re going to have to change the way we do business in [information technology],” Dailey said. “We did a bad job of communicating. There needs to be better centralized management.”
He said he has a long-term plan that would incorporate the $1.8 million replacement program that is under way to shift the county from a mainframe- to a personal computer-based system.
