The City of Methuen, Mass., will likely outsource its four-person Information Technology department, and begin a one-year agreement with RetroFit Technologies to provide IT related functions.
In the first year, Methuen expects to save $200,000. In 2011, RetroFit provided an assessment of the IT department, which detailed areas where costs could be reduced and performance increases. For example, there is currently no disaster-recovery plan, and in the past there have been instances of employees losing critical information on their computers. Under the new agreement, all data is backed up every 15 minutes.
According to media reports, other improvements include: a new ticketing system to track IT service requests; reduction of the current 25 server system to just two; and standardizing all hardware, software and operating systems.
If the first one-year contract works well, Methuen will add a three-year contract paying $284k annually.
Click here to read the original coverage. Details on Retrofit Technologies can be found here.