About

City Hall IT is a blog about doing information technology for local government, written by someone who does it every day.

I work in IT for a city. The job covers identity and Microsoft 365, networks and phones, GIS, the council chamber AV, and a steady stream of public records questions about all of it. Most of what I've learned came from getting something wrong first. This site is where I write those lessons down for other people in the same seat.

#Who writes this

I've worked in technology for more than 25 years, and more than 20 of those have been in local government, at both the county and city level. The organizations ranged from one of the largest in the state, with specialist teams and formal change control, to a suburban city where a small team covers everything from the help desk to the council chamber.

That range is the point of this site. At a large organization you learn how things should be done. At a small one you learn what actually happens when the same few people own identity, the network, the phones, GIS and the public records request about all of it. Most of what I write sits between the two.

#Who I've supported

Over the years that has included:

• Police, fire and EMS, and dispatch
• Utility billing and finance
• Public works, and parks and recreation
• The library
• Elections
• The city clerk and city council

Each comes with its own users, its own hours and its own idea of what counts as an emergency.

#The rules that come with them

Government IT doesn't get to pick its compliance requirements. Supporting those departments has meant working under:

• CJIS for police and dispatch systems
• HIPAA for fire and EMS patient data
• PCI DSS for utility and permit payments
• State public records law for nearly everything else: email, chat, files and the backups behind them

#The roles I've held

I've been the server admin rebuilding things at night, and I've been the IT department head defending a budget in front of council, along with most of the roles in between. So posts here cover both the commands and the conversations: how to fix the thing, and how to get approval and funding to fix it properly.

#What this site covers

• Identity and access: MFA rollouts, single sign-on, account lifecycles and the help desk calls that come with them
• Microsoft 365 in government: licensing, government cloud quirks, SharePoint and Teams for departments that don't think of themselves as technical
• GIS: keeping maps, parcels and field apps working for planning, public works and utilities
• Records and retention: what public records law means for email, chat, backups and deletion
• Budgets and procurement: getting technology through quotes, bids, contracts and council approval
• Security on a small team: what's realistic when you can't buy everything on the vendor slide

#Why it's anonymous

The lessons travel better without the city attached. Writing anonymously lets me be candid about mistakes without putting coworkers, vendors or residents on the spot, and it keeps details about a real network off the internet. Names, places, dates and technical specifics are changed in every post. Here's how.

Nothing here represents my employer, any city, or any vendor. See the disclaimer for the details.

#Get in touch

Email [email protected] with questions, corrections or your own war stories. I read everything, though I can't always reply quickly. Please don't send anything you wouldn't want shared, and please don't include details about your own organization's security gaps.

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