Cole County commissioners spent substantial time Dec. 3 reviewing budget pressures tied to information technology and subscription services, with staff warning that cloud migrations and new licensing models are driving multi-year cost increases.

"By the time we get done, it's also gonna be about 60 or $80,000 more a year," Brian, IT staff, said when describing the cost of moving Microsoft services and mail servers to a subscription model. County staff showed charts tracing cost growth since 2021 and said Internet and equipment service contracts are the fastest-growing expense lines.

Budget staff also noted the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding stream is drawing down. "The ARPA stuff all should be winding down at the '26, so this should be the last time on the budget to the ARPA funds," a county finance official said, adding that remaining ARPA balances are likely to be interest earnings that could be moved into the general revenue fund next year.

Commissioners discussed capital options to mitigate IT risk, including a $340,000 line for routine computer replacements and a $200,000 request for a phone-system upgrade that staff described as an "upgrade" to address end-of-life servers and security patching. Staff said the phone option could be structured as an OpEx lease or a one-time capital purchase; commissioners requested a breakdown of lifecycle costs and department-specific phone and extension counts before committing to a procurement path.

Officials also highlighted the county's cybersecurity grant, which staff said is expected to drop to about $60,000 next year; those federal funds have helped offset some subscription and managed-service expense spikes.

Commissioners asked IT and finance staff to provide a clearer allocation methodology for internal transfers so departments understand how growing central IT costs are billed back to their budgets. The county will revisit the capital and allocation proposals in next week's budget sessions.

The Commission recessed at the end of the meeting to prepare for continued budget deliberations next week.