Town of Olds proposes IT coordinator hire to deal with cyber attacks, other issues
According to CAO, Town of Olds has seen an increase in malware attacks and phishing attempts in the past 12-18 months.
OLDS — The proposed budget for the Town of Olds includes the hiring an Information technology (IT), coordinator, to deal with cyber attacks that have hit town computers over the past year and a half.
This person’s estimated salary is $112,500.
At the Dec. 12 council meeting, the budget will be up for approval. It includes a proposed tax increase of five percent and cost-of-living allowance (COLA) of four percent.
Send an email to AlbertanBrent Williams, chief administrator, said that Edmonton has been providing its IT services to the town.
Two or three other staff members also helped by streaming council meetings, fixing printer/computer issues, and any other problems that arose.
“This does take away time from those staff, all of whom have other primary duties,” he wrote.
Williams added that eventually that third party contract will be phased out “so the IT coordinator cost will be offset by approximately 60 per cent in 2024, once our current IT agreement expires in December 2023.
“We felt it prudent to have an overlap period due to the time it takes to recruit and orientate a new employee.”
Williams stated that the Town of Olds was hit by an increase in malware attacks and phishing attempts within the past 12-18 months.
“Furthermore, we have never invested significantly in document security, so many of our filing remains paper-based, with our electronic file storage being contained within on-premises servers. This provides issues with both efficiency and document security,” he wrote.
Williams said part of the IT coordinator’s job will be to lead the movement of all of that to a cloud-based system.