TUSCOLA COUNTY — Although “Big Brother” isn’t watching, he is doing some tracking and monitoring.
“The Automatic Vehicle Locator system is working well in the sheriff’s department patrol cars,” said Tuscola County Information Technology Director Eean Lee.
The program that helps monitor where vehicles are located has proven to be successful so others are interested in using that technology also.
“The city of Caro is interested in this technology,” Lee said. “The road commission has asked about it, and mosquito abatement is interested in it for their trucks.”
“We are finding lots of applications for this one-use solution that we thought we were getting, but we are actually finding may ways to level our investment for it, which was minimal,” he said. “This is a home run for the county and I cannot stress how useful this program is.”
Lee is also developing an online page for the county’s animal control department for donations and for making online payments.
“I will be doing training on that with those at animal control and with our treasurer,” he said.
Tuscola County has a long history of embracing technology. Years ago Tuscola was the first county in the Thumb to start implementing technology.
Also, Lee explained the county’s probate court did a demonstration on its document imaging.
“There were 15 people interested in learning what we do,” said Lee, noting there were some from neighboring Sanilac County and also from Livingston County who participated in the demonstration.
“It is awesome to have counties that are significantly bigger than us that are interested in our county and how we have our operations set up,” he said.
Besides developing and maintaining the county’s information network, Lee and others in the technology department are also responsible for defending the network. Hackers trying to break into the network is a constant threat.
“Our security posture is the best it has ever been in the county,” Lee stated. “And, we continue to work on and focus on professional development and training.”
The IT department is primarily concerned with directing, coordinating, and planning the computer activities of the county. The department is responsible for control and integrity of all data files received, processed and produced, and of ensuring proper network backups.