The Shelby County Supervisors have approved a proposal to move the Shelby County courthouse computer services to the Emergency Communication Center. In a regular this (Tuesday) morning, Shelby County Auditor Marsha Carter said the move has been planned for the last several years.

“We’ve talked about how we did phase 1 with racks set up in preparation of moving our servers over there so this is nothing new. We have been putting money aside, at least 3 years to do the project. I finally talked to them and said let’s get this done. We talked about it at budget time. It is something that needs to be done. We need upgrades to our servers so in the process we will upgrade everything we can so we have everything where it should be when the move is complete.”

The Supervisors have been saving $50,000 per year for the last three years for the project. The current courthouse equipment is stationed in the basement of the courthouse which Carter said has the potential to be a problem. “We’ve been looking for a bunker type place. If there was a tornado and knocked the building down, right now they are not in a weather proof or secure place. We’ve had seminars on it and we need to be prepared.”

Carter went on to say that the equipment would be in jeopardy if a water main or large rainstorm came in as the equipment is on the floor. The cost of the project will be over $200,000 with the purchase of new equipment. A representative from Heartland Technologies was at the meeting and stated there will not be a lot of down time during the move as the company will work at off hours and overnight. The completion date is tentatively set for June 30^th.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)