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Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Ind. Courts - "Battle of wills between Vanderburgh County's judges and highest-ranking elected officials over control of city and county computer services "
The Evansville Courier& Press reports today, in a story by Thomas B. Lannghorne:
A yearlong battle of wills between Vanderburgh County's judges and highest-ranking elected officials over control of city and county computer services is one step closer to ending.An ordinance passed by the County Commissioners on Tuesday - the City Council will consider an identical measure July 10 - establishes a governing structure for the city and county's joint Internet Technology Department.
The massive $3.4 million enterprise and the power to make decisions about how its 1,500-plus computers, servers and networking equipment are deployed were the subject of negotiations so rocky that they threatened to unravel on several occasions.
The judges and their supporters in other county agencies got some of what they wanted, but they did not receive what they fought for the hardest: a 20-member IT Advisory Council composed of city and county officials and themselves who would have the power to make spending, personnel and IT Department policy decisions.
It would have been the first time anyone other than the County Commissioners and the mayor's office would have held that power.
Instead, the ordinance the County Commissioners passed Tuesday creates a similarly composed 28-member council that can only make recommendations to a chief information officer who will report to them and to the mayor.
The judges had proposed that the CIO be confirmed by 70 percent of the advisory council. When the mayor and County Commissioners rejected that idea, the judges proposed that the advisory council's president be invited to any meetings between the CIO and the mayor's office or County Commissioners. That idea also was rejected.
So adamant were the judges about having decision-making power that Superior Court Judge J. Douglas Knight suggested in March that the judges might create a separate Internet Technology system for Vanderburgh County Courts.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 28, 2006 07:25 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts