Pulaski County Begins Work to Modernize Technology Infrastructure

Pulaski County CourthousePulaski County is readying plans to upgrade some of the technology that keeps the county running, but that could take some time.

During Monday night’s meeting of the Pulaski County Commissioners, new IT Director RB Walters provided an assessment of the county’s technology needs and possible upgrades. First on the list was an increase in Internet speed and capacity.

Walters says changes to the servers may also be needed.

“What one is going to do is actually: all the data is going to go to one drive, it will mirror over to the second drive,” says Walters. “What that will allow us to do, is if one crashes, the other one is still up and running and we can put it back online and actually get our data back.”

Additional data storage for the Prosecutor’s office and other departments could also be necessary to put documents in a searchable database for easy access.

Implementing the changes could cost Pulaski County thousands. Plans for upgrades, however, could be implemented over the course of several years. Among the upgrades is new fiber optic cable connecting the Pulaski County Justice Center to the County Annex Building. That would provide room for the use of IP phones.

Pulaski County Commission President Larry Brady was curious how far the county is behind the times.

“This didn’t happen overnight, and it can’t be fixed overnight,” says Brady. “But we’ve got to put the first step forward in getting to 2015, at least.”

The Pulaski County Commissioners approved the internet changes on Monday night as well as certain phone upgrades.

Additional technology upgrades will be considered in future sessions, likely being funded out of the County’s Cumulative Capital Fund.