The town of Monterey is looking to do away with “most” of the fees they are paying to a company called Local Government Corporation to cover maintenance and potential replacement of computer hardware.
Mayor Alex Garcia said he has gone over some of the charges Monterey has been paying and believes they are unnecessary.
“I’ll just go through a few of them,” he said at a recent meeting of the town’s Finance Committee. “Everybody knows a computer monitor runs about $120. They’re charging us $72 a year to maintain it. For the past three or four years, we’ve been paying $72. How many times have we bought that monitor?”
He also said Ella Dishman, the town’s certified municipal finance officer, could not recall that the town had ever had to replace a faulty monitor under the contract.
He said maintenance agreements on hardware like uninterruptible power supplies are also unnecessary.
“You can go to Sam’s and get a [battery back-up] for $54.95,” he said. “We pay $55 a year on a battery back-up.”
Garcia added, “On our work stations, I’m going to say they’re $250 on a high day. We pay $345 a year to maintain them. I think they’re robbing us.”
The mayor said it was important for the town to keep an agreement with Local Government Corporation concerning tech support for software that supports things like payroll and online billing, but he didn’t think it was prudent to pay for coverage of the hardware.
He also said a company representative was less than helpful when he called to ask about exactly what the fees were supposed to cover.
Alderman Cecilia Paulsen added, “My curiosity is what are we getting for our money? And I’m not seeing it.”
“Somebody’s going to have to come talk to us,” he said.
The mayor said he is working to come up with a specific list of items that can be eliminated, and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen will further discuss the issue when it meets Monday, Nov. 11.
“I wouldn’t take away anything that has to do with the server [or] any of the software,” he said. “We’re basically just looking at hardware maintenance plans.”
