Five Franklin County towns have received a combined total of more than $110,000 in Community Compact Information Technology grants for new financial management systems, a CCTV camera system, and improving interdepartmental collaboration and cybersecurity.
Gill Town Administrator Ray Purington said the town received a $25,124 grant that will pay for software that will make data sharing easier. He said the tax collector will be able to share information with assessors, the treasurer and the accountant.
Shelburne received $18,586 for labor and monitoring of its computer system at the Senior Center, which had a cybersecurity issue in July 2019. Senior Center Director Cathy Buntin said the grant will pay for the labor to have cloud-based and offsite backup for the center’s computer system, which is separate from the town’s. She said the grant won’t replace any hardware.
“It’s so important to have a secure system,” Buntin said. “It’s even part of our town’s emergency preparedness.”
Buckland will use its $5,000 grant to install a closed-circuit television surveillance system at the wastewater treatment plant. Chief Operator Dan Fleuriel said the new system can be accessed by smartphone or computer.
“The system we have now came with the building in 1974,” Fleuriel said. “It’s an auto-dial, central answering service that gets ahold of one of the two of us operators here.”
Fleuriel said the new system in Buckland will alert the operators immediately to any problems, including a power outage, if the flow is too high and many more of the serious issues that could arise. Now, it can be hours before they are alerted, and sometimes it isn’t as serious as the current system makes it out to be.
There is no one at the wastewater treatment plant around the clock because there are only two operators, so he said a monitoring system is necessary.
“This is to give us more information so that we can make better decisions,” he said.
Leyden received $40,000, which it will use to purchase new computers or update current systems to Windows 10, and Rowe received $21,303 for new financial management systems.
According to a press statement from Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, the grants are meant to help municipalities strengthen their own technological infrastructures, which will in turn enable them to deliver high-quality services.
The Community Compact program allows municipalities to secure state grants for local projects that focus on community development, emergency management, environmental resources and more. The IT grant program, specifically, has awarded $12 million since 2016 in support of more than 300 municipal and school district projects designed to modernize and improve technological systems.
Reach Anita Fritz at
413-772-0261, ext. 269 or afritz@recorder.com.