By G. MICHAEL GRAHAM
Fort Thomas Matters Reporter
Technology
has helped many governments get things done quicker and more efficiently in
recent years.
The City of
Fort Thomas has taken full advantage of many of them. The city government uses
Time Warner as its Internet provider. The speeds are 50 megabits per second
(Mbps) downloaded from the internet to the computers and 5 Mbps uploaded from
the computers to the Internet. The City also uses Microsoft Windows as its
operating system.
“Highlights include allowing our Police and Fire
departments to communicate with peers and constituents in an immediate and
as-needed basis,” said Don Martin, City
Administrative Officer. “That has
allowed our purchasing department to research to find the best items at the
best prices and allowed our City to announce city-wide events and emergencies.”
Fort Thomas
has also taken advantage of a popular e-mail system known as Microsoft Outlook.
The latest version of it is 2010. That lets people organize e-mails into
specific folders. For instance, a mayor could organize e-mails from the fire
chief into one folder and e-mails from the chief of police into another one.
“It provides a full-featured interface, powerful
searching, in-house and offsite access, and long-term retention,” Martin said.
The City
uses these and other technologies to perform huge duties. One is keeping track
of tax payments from residents.
“We use Property Systems, which was custom written for
our needs,” Martin said of keeping track of
tax payments. “In recent years, we have
introduced OCR payment receipt which allows quicker access to funds, eliminates
input errors and greatly reduces manual input time requirements.”
Martin and
the City know about the risks of using the Internet. One is the Internet can go
out. Martin said the City does not have a backup plan if that happens.
“However, the Police and Fire departments have radio
redundancy,” Martin said. “The Internet backup options for our level
of required bandwidth are too costly, especially when the high level of
Internet reliability is considered (less than five hours of known downtime over
the last five years).”
There are
also security risks involved. Hackers often work around the clock to get into
private systems.
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“We have proven systems
in place,” Martin said. “But revealing the specifics could reduce efficacy.”