Information Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

[music] Repeat the beginning of the meeting. We'll call to order this meeting of the IT committee with a roll call. Bob Carol not here. Amar Clark here. Bob Hassinger. Lucas Remalard here. Mr. Robbins is here and Mr. Carol is in the process of joining us.

Just doing a roll call. Bob Carol. Hi. Sorry. Yeah, I'm here. Getting my video and microphone working. [clears throat] That's always that can be a challenge sometimes. My computer doesn't always cooperate with me. Yes, sir.

Anyway, [laughter] so um we'll get into our agenda. The first agenda item is public input. We have no attendees on Zoom, but if any of us has a matter that counts as public input that's not otherwise on the agenda, now would be the time. Hearing none, the next agenda item is the update from the town administrator. Um, neither Evan nor William were able to attend the meeting tonight. William did send out late this afternoon a status report on the um new IT contractor and the potential IT administrator position. Uh did anybody not get a chance to see that and read it? Okay. any any Let me I should bring up my find my notes so I can take note of anything that might come up. There we go. So, any anybody have any comments or questions that I can relay to the administrative staff? So, let's see. So, I had a question. Um, maybe you guys discussed this before I came on the committee, but um the IT director, like is that like a full-time position? Like, is that supposed to be like trying to add value to the town, you know, through like website improvement and communication? My recollection and and and any of you guys can correct me if I'm wrong or if I miss something. My recollection is that

it was at least in part to take care of some of the day-to-day stuff that so that we we can take care of things that come up when the IT contractor is not on site. I think Evan was looking for the IT director to take on some more oversight responsibility as well. Um I I I forget the details off the top of my head. Anybody remember anything more than that? If not, we can uh you know, we can sort of ask Evan to follow up, you know, to with a at least his his current view of that, which may have changed. Bob, Carol.

Yes, sir. The way the way I recall it is um that was like a job description he downloaded. I think it was from Westboro and um it was um accompanied the um I think the RFP. He kind of did both of those at the same time and that's what he was kind of looking for. But I don't think he really got to, you know, the responsibilities, the duties, you know, fully vetted it out. It was just in the very early kind of discovery, right? And and feeling this out. And, you know, based on it sounds like the way the budget discussions are going, you know, might all be a moot point anyway. So,

yeah, I I've been seeing some of those. That's why I was asking because I was curious like is this going to be a full-time position? Like would it be worth getting if if there was some value that they would be providing? But it kind of seems like they would just pick up extra stuff and uh yeah, I think um William um has, you know, been picking up a lot of this stuff, but I I don't get the sense, you know, he's a technologist, right? He's this has just been kind of dumped in his lap. Yeah. He's doing the best he can with it.

Yeah. Yep. I I suspect over the years that we and this committee have uh occasionally discussed the uh the the value that the town could get from a a someone who was probably, you know, would be more commonly or properly described as an IT director as opposed to, you know, those IT support staff. And uh if per chance, and this you could happen this year, could happen next year, but if per chance Evan is in a position once they've got their budget details worked out, um I strongly suspect that in the sort of the default budget position, which would be a budget tightening, there's probably no chance of filling an IT director position. position, but if per chance the sluck board chooses to put forth an override proposal and if per chance, I wouldn't want to try to quantify that, but if per chance something like that does succeed and we get some more or or if other other funding sources appear that are you to the point where after filling some other budget holes there ends up being room for an IT director of some kind. Like I say, I'm not I'm not holding my holding my breath for that. But, you know, it's perhaps at least as likely that something like that won't come around till next fiscal year. But in any case, whenever it does come about, I would I would encourage the town administrator to work with this committee to flush out the uh

responsibilities of such a position. Right. Okay. Yeah. And we did have a draft job description that was distributed I think in May. I have it if we want to Yeah. I send it around again.

So um back to the um general IT update from William. So David, did you have conversation with him with William? uh an email conversation. I I emailed Evan and William to ask if either one of them were going to be at the meeting and if not if they could send to the committee whatever they anything they would like to bring to the committee's attention. Williams email is the result of that. Okay. So, he's just responding to your query. Yeah.

Yeah. Um Yeah. And I mean it really doesn't matter because um they're not here to represent you know what's going on but um it it didn't leave a good taste in my mouth with um vendor right that's doing our support and the um the nickel and dimming stuff right um so I'd like to understand that and um I mean would it be appropriate for us to respond to him to William.

I'm sorry. Nobody can hear me. I can hear you faintly. Yeah, we can. You kind of faint, Bob. Oh, not had much luck. I mean, if nothing more than to get more details, right? you know, I don't I want to give the new vendor the benefit of the doubt, but um you know, this doesn't doesn't sound good. It's kind of like, you know, the oldest game in the book, right? [laughter] Yeah. No, I [clears throat] Yeah.

Yeah. I you one reason, excuse me. One one thing I would I kind of asked if you had any feedback or comments was I if anything obviously we're not going to have a back and forth at this meeting, but I would I would certainly want to pass on to Evan and William questions that we may have and that we might like things for we for which we might like further explanation or discussion at our next meeting. Ultimately, I think the uh it would be good for us to meet with the new IT contractor whenever whenever that works out, but that hopefully sometime within the next few meetings we can do that.

Bob Hasser, have your finger up. Bob, what's that? Still not real good. Um, we've been talking about needing someone at this sort of level since this committee was formed. Um, how many years ago? Um, it's going on 20 years. Given the budget outlook, um, IT director or a couple more teachers, forget about it.

Yeah. not going to happen this year. Um, I'm quite confident [clears throat] I Oh, question on on on the on road report though. Are we doing something so that you know how people go to the planning board pages and see the paperwork the documents that we're dealing with there? [clears throat] Do we have the equivalent capability because I think it would be nice to have this report that is not being recorded so people can't come in and look at the recording and know what's in it. if we could have something um you know pay of somehow the the website. Yes, it has. It recently crossed my mind and I think this is when I was preparing for this meeting that uh a number of committees have you gotten into the practice of posting alongside the agenda they post a meeting packet and that you know that sort of remains permanently available and I think it it occurred to me that it might be a good idea for us to get into that habit as well. I' I'd have to look into you finding out who I would need to get to do that. Yeah. Because we really don't have any anybody in town halls. We have nobody assigned as you know support staff for us. But in all likelihood, I would work through the TA the administrator's office and I could prepare meeting packets and get them posted on the on

the agendas and minutes website along with the agenda and that would be kind of a permanent record of the documents that we have discussed at the meeting and yeah, it would make it more accessible.

Yeah. Um I'm seeing a number of committees that putting up a separate link um when they have their packet. But then I noticed the selectman as a rule just put up uh the the agenda again with the packet all in a file actually with links from agenda items to the documents. So that's two different styles for what it's worth. In any case, uh how about if we make a note to have this subject on our next agenda so we can find out what you managed to find day.

Yes. And I don't think it'd be too burdensome or ownorous, right? We don't have a lot of stuff. So it just be, you know, things like this, right? Or um notes and what have you.

Yes. It might be interesting to note that um the town clerk Oh, sorry. Lost my train of thought there. the the town clerk likes to get copies of all the documents that we discuss at the meeting. So for and I don't know off the top of my head where they whether they put those in a place that's accessible, but with the last several IT committee meeting minutes. I have sent along a a PDF collection of all the documents, you know, the because the minutes the minutes have to list the documents that were discussed at the meeting and they want to make sure they actually have actual copy. So, this may actually coordinate somehow with the uh idea of posting a meeting packet in the agendas section as well. So yes, I that's that I will follow up on that and find see what I can find out as the best way to to handle that.

Yeah. If nothing else, the town has to be able to respond to document requests. Um, and if the clerk doesn't have if we don't have a system, um, and if the clerk doesn't have a system, then it would be hard to, um, the town to respond if there was a request. So, that's probably why she's asking for the files to try to do obtain the record. Yep. Amar.

Yeah. So, I think that there's a couple of different ways to approach this, right? Um that there's there's going to be documents that we're reviewing and and presumably reviewing them prior to the meeting, right? Um does it make would it would it make sense for us to have those posted before the meeting like with the agenda or would it make more sense to have them posted with the meeting minutes? Um, it it I do know that u several committees that I've at least paid some attention to have been posting those documents alongside the agenda ahead of time. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

It it it can sometimes happen that documents come in at the last minute like somebody's email that came out late this afternoon, right? Obviously you can't include that in advance but uh so there sort of there's probably value in some combination you know certain certainly Bob and I can speak to our experience on the planning board we have lots of documents that are posted in our meeting material section those are basically posted as individual documents whereas a number of the other boards and committees collect the individual documents into a single PDF. It was sort of six to one, half a dozen of the other,

right? Yep.

But then in addition to having documents available for review prior to the meeting, last minute documents that may may only be circulated to the committee the day of um those ultimately need to be captured as well. So there's some combination of the documents that are posted ahead of time and the documents that end up being filed with the town clerk. And you know, I would I would I would be what I intend to do is to, you know, kind of follow up on that and try try to see if there's there's a way to effectively do both with minimal extra effort. And it partly depends on what the town clerk's needs are, whether, you know, whether, for example, it's sufficient for the town clerk's purposes for them to for us to have had the the meetings, the documents posted ahead of time with the exception of anything that comes in the last minute. So I you know there's there's some details there but I think

I think it's it's advant it's it's surely advantageous for the documents that the committee is going to be dealing with at the meeting to be post ahead of time so that interested parties other than the committee itself have an opportunity to see them. Right. Yeah. And attend if they they wanted to. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I I've been on this since since the idea was invented of uh transparency and all of that. Um in the planning board case documents trickle in until about quarter to 7.

Yes.

Um sometimes a little later than that. Uh sometimes actually I think we've had a couple arrive during the meeting. Um, and there are people out there interested in what's going on in the meeting and maybe even hoping for a chance to talk to us about whatever it is that's going on. To have the full openness, you need a system where when there's a document that is being discussed, people uh have a chance to see it at meeting time. So that I to me is is the standard to to look for which mean that I don't know how we get that because planning board manages to get it because we have staff who are

overtime between quitting time and meeting time and

during the week organizing all that stuff. But in our in the planning board case, it's it's a much bigger deal. Things are organized by each of the applications which go on and on and all kinds of documents. But someone's going to be interested and want want to know this. This document is interesting because it does speak a little bit into the the current budget situation which is So, I'd like it to be there as much as possible.

Yep. I'll get to I'll get to work on see what I can find out and come up with for one or more alternatives that we can discuss at our next meeting. So ultimately ultimately however we handle it that should be a committee decision and not one not just me doing what I think I know is best and it turns out it's really not. Yeah. Well IT director would uh be looking at how to how to organize and staff so that this would be available. Yeah, I guess it will. This got to be the IT director in the meantime.

Be the compliance officer. Yeah. [clears throat] Okay. Okay, I'm good. Um, so do we want to craft a response to um, William or um, just ask David? you can ask for more information on the um issues or perceived issues or details with the the um service provider.

Yeah, I think the notes I've just taken on our discussion, my takeaway is that number one, we would love an opportunity to meet with them and number two, we have some concerns about some of the extra costs that William reports. Yeah. Yeah. See, it's almost sounded like anything above like a level one support was getting charged additional, you know, fees if it had to be called into whatever their central location is. Yeah. So,

and and maybe we could um David get I don't know whe they did like a um a contract or a professional services agreement or what the you know the covenant is of the you know the agreement with the vendor to take a look at that and if it's you know strictly time and materials kind of thing then that's one thing but you know depending on the language in there right?

Yep. I'll see what I can find out about that. Or not just what I can find out, but I'll see what you what how they might want to follow up on that with us. I mean, ideally, if we could get either Evan or William to actually meet with us so we can have that would be good. [clears throat] That would be ideal. When's the last time one or both of those guys actually met with us? Back in July. Uh September.

The last meeting we had was September and William did attend that meeting. We had put off meetings once or twice before that had because we didn't have Yeah. Right. And it's probably going to be, you know, we're getting into thicker budget season, so they're going to be wrapped up. And, you know, they've got nighttime meetings now with the um FinCom, right, and school committee and select board meeting like every week now.

Yeah. Y we we'll see what we can arrange. I I guess I would at least keep into my back pocket the opportunity to meet with either one of them on a non-wednesday if it that should prove to be um one of them might pro be available on a non-wednesday. Sure. But it's it's also true that a lot of both of their time is going to be largely focused on budgets for the next few weeks. So it we we'll we'll see. I'll I'll

only until Yeah, that's right. From now until May, right? [laughter] Okay. So that's that's good for that. Our next agenda item is the committee's annual report. I circulated a draft of that. I will gladly take any suggestions for additions, corrections, improvements. Or if no one has anything else, a motion to approve the report would be in order. Motion to approve

as drafted. I second. All right. Moved and seconded that the IT committee's 2025 annual report be approved as drafted. I can get it into Cindy before the January 31st deadline. Remarkable. We never have any trouble getting that in on time. Okay. Next is we need a vote. We need a vote, right?

Oh, yeah. Picky picky. We should actually take a vote. H. I think I'm somehow I'm not quite with it tonight. Bob Carol. Bob Carol's eye. Omar Clark. I. Bob Hassinger. Hi. Lucas Remlard. I. and Dave Robbins votes eye. Motion carried unanimously. Thank you for reminding me of that little detail. I believe I have minutes of our last meeting, the September whatever the date was. I don't have it in front of me.

I make a motion that we um accept and approve the minutes as drafted. Seconded. Okay. Just to be picky, I'm going to not September 16th. All right. So, motion's been made and seconded to approve the minutes of September 16th, 2025 as drafted. Any discussion of the motion hearing? None. Mr. Carroll. Carol's eye. Mr. Clark I. Mr. Hassinger I. Mr. Remlard I.

And Mr. Robbins. Motion carried unanimously. What else? Oh, I had an item in here of I labeled it correspondence and because we once in a great while the IT committee email address gets some correspondence and Bob Carol sort of wanted to call to our attention the the most recent one and I believe I included the uh copy of the email in the meeting materials um regarding the someone who proposes to who was interested in talking with the town about AI. Uh to whatever extent did you want to follow up on that at all, Bob?

So I I don't know as if um I want to reach out to this individual, right? It's definitely, you know, a sales call and all that, but if you know, we had Evan and or William um you know, I think just discussing the topics with them was kind of what I was looking for, right? and um you know kind of gauge their um reception and openness for for doing that um and see where we could go from there. [clears throat]

there would be money involved in uh what that message was offering or proposing um because I don't think we don't have money for IT director not going to have money for AI at this early stage in AI

but I think we do have access and that's what I would like to find out um with 036 65 and whatever they've purchased, you know, from Microsoft um what they've got in um capabilities with, you know, their licensing agreement with Copilot because they they do have some, I would think, right? I' I'd have to verify that. So, yes, I get the I get the money piece. So, there is none. But if you know, again, I don't know what what they what they bought and what they have. I see the um the line items in the budget um where they did buy the the entitlements um but um I'd just like to understand you know are there fundamentals can we pilot some of these right and you know for the for town employees anyway and um at least you know have exposure and kind of the as we would call it crawl walk run model right at least do a little bit and you know PC kind of Um because uh it I don't know how much you guys use this stuff, but um it really is great for a lot of the um the drudgery.

Yeah. Transcription, meeting minutes, those types of things. It's fantastic for, right? I'm a I'm a project manager primarily in my new role and uh it's a it's a godsend, right? Mhm. have been not having to have a separate person to us be assigned to take meeting minutes and and that sort of thing while I'm running the meeting. It it's been it's been great to to have that capability. So, do you use um Gemini, am I or what's the tool? Uh we're using Teams for the transcription. So, Microsoft

Yeah. And then I'm feeding it into chat GPT. We have a a corporate instance of chat GPT that we're feeding it feeding it into. I don't have the like the full co-pilot suite. Um there was some security concerns around it, right? We're a cyber insurance company, so security is is the you know, if if there was a breach, then we'd be done. Um so the the decision has been made not to pursue the full co-pilot um tool because it basically will crawl every single piece of information that you legitimately have access to whether you know you have access to it or not. Right. So um so there was there was concerns around that but um but yeah chat GPT was the kind of the tool of choice uh for that. So even if even if the town doesn't you know have access to any um large large language models or um agents or anything like that um to have that information to know that right then we've just we've kind of done our due diligence.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean if they have standard Office 3 Microsoft 365 or Office 365 licensing it comes with like a very basic version of Copilot as well. um it just doesn't integrate with your apps or anything.

Yeah. So, there's a potentially interesting conversation to be had here about what AI tools the town has access to. What kinds of AI tools could the town productively use? I assume we would like to avoid using the AI tools that uh that have a tendency to hallucinate, that have a tendency to tell you whatever you want to hear. I mean, you know, there's, you know, there's AI that's actually useful and then there's there's it's more questionable. But, you know, starting kind of a starting point is what do we have act what do we have actually have access to and what could we usefully use?

Okay, let's ask Dave, ask William and Evan to have a bit of a chat with us. not not just in the memo that says uh not now or we're thinking about it, but have a little chat with us um when they can uh to get started on it. Yeah,

it I think that it's it's generally really good for driving efficiencies, right? So, not saying that this would be a good opportunity to, you know, cut staff necessarily, but it might be a good opportunity to not have to hire additional staff as the workload grows and things like that, right? I think that there's, you know, there's that there's definitely um tons of philosophy around this now and different different ways of thought, right? Right. I mean, there's some companies that are just trying to replace their workforce with AI agents and things like that. Um, but I think that there's, you know, potentially ways to adopt AI that can help the people that are working for the town do their jobs more efficiently, right? And and when we're talking about a budget crunch and things like that, those are potentially the types of things that you want to be investigating, right?

Yeah.

Same thing. We're just talking about about our documents, [clears throat] what's going on, who does what, where things are. It's all over the place. So, if you want to actually make progress, you need someone who understands this, understands what's going on, and can start working it out. And um if William didn't have anything else to do, I'll bet he would. But um our chat with with them going to say um let's let's wait till we let's wait they get a chance to talk to their peers at the next whatever meeting peers go to. Don't you think Dave? Yeah. It's a Yeah. Having the resources [snorts] to even be able to start to tackle something like this is an issue. Um, I would I would think that Evan has some peers in the TA world who may have [clears throat] he may may give him some, you know, contacts within towns that have had some success at adopting AI. And that that would certainly be I would think we I think I would want we would want that to be a part of the conversation is you know we're not trying to invent a wheel here. We've got you know I think what we're talking about here is more exploring what the uh what the possibilities might be. And that certainly a part of that's got to be reaching out to people who have some experience with it who can who who can who can say some of the good and bad about it. you know, this works, this doesn't work, something like that.

Well, having watched and interacted with Evan and and some of Will on a number of things, my observation has been that it's exactly Evan is going to look at his resources out on the internet if he isn't already watching that and come back with an impression of what's what's going on. And um I think we can wait until we hear from from them to push to hard and just our job at least now is to show interest and ask them to talk to us about it. Yeah, I think that's that's kind of the my takeaway from this conversation is that you know that uh you know we're we want to sort of sort of put the bug in their ears so to speak and you know sort of begin some conversations and some explorations. Carol,

uh, I guess I look at a little more, you know, the the kind of this committee and philosophically I think, you know, we should kind of push, right? And and we want to kind of like and and I get it. If we don't have the money and we don't have the resources, all that, but we we we certainly should push, you know, to kind of aim higher, right, and do more. And you know kind of the metaphor we use for the whole AI is like a force multiplier right and I think that's kind of what you were talking about Omar like you know in this kind of mode it just helps and allows you to do other more high value things. You know you still make whatever you make as a town employee. you know, your hourly rate or salary or whatever, but you can focus on um things other than, you know, plans, taking notes, meeting minutes, correspondence, and again, I I think it would be huge if we just had some very simple use cases because, you know, there's and I'm not totally familiar with all Microsoft stuff. We're we're a Google shop, so um you know, we use that, but you know, some of the automation, how you respond to email that you know, how we could use agents to respond to um phone calls, that sort of thing, right? For customer care, customer service. And I'm not recommending or proposing these. I'm just saying they should be looked at, right?

Oh, the different use cases. And that's the point. the next step to get on get going that direction is what just spoke of [clears throat] not gonna we're not gonna accomplish anything right now until right the next step yeah and then I think if they adopted something you know even something very simple something they could put their arms around, you know, that would be a win, right? And that would be good for Evan and the town and everybody.

Let's talk to them about it. All right. Right. We'll move ahead in that direction. I'll re reach out to Evan and William and we may find our find ourselves in a conversation with them to follow up on some of these thoughts and ideas. Yeah. Yeah, get getting something started is the sort of that's step one. [laughter] Getting their time to come to a meeting is step one. That's always awesome. Maybe if they had an AI agent to do some of their work, then they would have more time to attend meetings. Yes. Can we make an AI clone of Evan? AI [laughter]

AI is definitely the future. Even the army has created their own like chat GPT that we're I think it's called project dark saber. Yep. But like even the army for regular day use they expect us to use that for things like when I do any type of reports or anything I'm expected to run it through that before I submit it. So definitely is something that the town should be looking into. Right. Okay. I think we've beat that horse enough. [snorts]

Yes. I think I I think I think we have a direction in which to start moving. [gasps] Okay. What's left on our agenda? Possible executive session. Well, we have no topics that require executive session, so we can pass over that one. And the only thing left is a motion to adjurnn. So, go ahead, Bob. I'm sorry. Um, did I hear you ask Bob Hassinger make a motion to adjurnn? I did.

Oh, no. Before we do that, um, I had sent this was a while ago. Um, the inquiry about the email and whatever filtering. Do you guys recall that? I pass it along. I think it came was some correspond from one of the select board members. Oh, was this the thing with uh An Marie? It might have been Anarie. Yeah. And it was like a like a fake email that appeared to come from Anie, right? Yes. I'm just looking for it. This was probably three months ago. Yeah,

I remember that. So um and I was interested you know if we have that tool right because it's it's some kind of almost like um like postin used to work under you know before Gmail and Google bought it um some kind of email filtering and processing and that's what I was hoping Evan could explain because there's definitely something going on but um again I I don't have any answers. I just have questions. So, unless you know, Evan or William could speak to that. It's really a moot point. And And then the last thing, I'm guessing everyone else got the um notification to take the um compliance training for um public meetings and all that stuff.

I didn't get it, but I think I've taken mine recently. Yeah. I think for the veterans committee. Yeah. So, yeah, I think if you're on another committee, you've probably already done it. Yeah. The state will send state sends those out uh like a month before the deadline that you're supposed to do it. So, that comes from the state. Yeah. Okay. I thought some things from our clerk, too. I'm not sure which. Yeah. Yeah. Up until fairly recently, the clerk always sent out those notices on the so I thought

because there's the conflict of interest training and then there's the acknowledgement that you've read the conflict of interest law and guidelines. That acknowledgement I think you're expected to do that every year. The training is every other year. It used to be that the town clerk would send notices out to the boards and committees to pass on to their members. Like I would get one to pass on to all of you. But in the last couple years at least, the state has now uh gotten their act together on that. And the state keeps track of everybody who's received the training and when they when they're due to renew it. And like I got my email a week or so ago uh for the acknowledgement of that you've read the conflict of interest. Um I'm not due for training for it's either several months or a year. I forget which. that the state has been basically taken over the job of, you know, no matter how many boards and committees you're on, the state knows that you're an a town employee and they know when when they want you to refresh the training.

Yeah. Looking at the I found an email um this coming from the state. Yeah. Massachusetts conflict of interest training, right? state state ethics committee. So, yep. Okay. I I I was just verifying that um you know this wasn't some code of fishing or fishing or fishing or smishing or whatever. What happens if you don't make the date? No. Somebody probably pesteries you more than likely the town clerk is notified and the and the town clerk will probably pester you. Almost sure that I'm covered and I can wait and that'll wake me up and take care of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I got mine from Amy Amy Barry from the town. Sorry it came in came through. I did have one question. Uh, do we have a date set for our next meeting yet? Uh, and we haven't really set a date yet, but we've generally been meeting on the second Wednesday of the month, right? Which would put it at February 11th. So, unless we have a reason to select a different date, that would be the default.

Sounds good to me. Yep, that works for me, too. Okay, cool. So, Bob, you want to make your motion? Do we adjourn? I arguably, if I could be picky, the motion is on the floor, but it has not yet been seconded. Okay, I'll second Bob's motion that we adjourn. All right, moved and seconded that that we adjourn. The motion is not debatable. Mr. Carol I. Mr. Clark I. Mr. Hassinger I. Mr. Remlard I. And Mr. Robbins votes I. Motion carried unanimously. We are adjourned.