Information & Technology Services

Dale Nieswiadomy, Director
dnieswiadomy@co.livingston.ny.us

(585)243-7191
(585) 335-1731

Background on the Department

The Livingston County Data Processing Department was initiated in 1985. It started by purchasing an IBM mainframe and three Wang minicomputers. The mainframe was used generally for county wide processing (payroll, general ledger, accounts payable) and the Wang systems for departmental functions (word processing).

Late in 1994 a recommendation was made to change all the equipment we had due to the high cost of maintenance (the mainframe cost alone was upwards of $25,000 per year to maintain) and because it was too difficult to make changes as the business of government changed. It was also getting more difficult to find staff who understood the equipment.

At that point, the county started adopting IBM AS/400s as the central systems. One was purchased for the Sheriff’s Department E-911 system and another to replace the county mainframe. It took approximately 20 months to completely convert the county mainframe systems to the AS/400. The total conversion was done using in-house staff, 1 contract programmer and a conversion company for 1/5th cost of an outside consulting firm.

In July of 1999, the department's name was changed to Information & Technology Services.

What Information & Technology Services Does

Information & Technology Services is charged with supporting any and all computers used in Livingston County Government Departments. If a project is contemplated with a computer, the department is involved. Also, Information & Technology Services is involved with all county communications systems including telephones, microwaves and radios.

A major new addition to the department is an in-house training facility for Livingston County staff. Because the county is getting so much more new computer equipment, it would have cost a small fortune to train the end users. Currently, we offer classes for Windows NT4®, the Microsoft Office Suite and Lotus Notes. Other classes will be added as needed.

Major Departments Supported by Information & Technology Services

All county departments - payroll, general ledger, purchasing, accounts payable, budgeting, telephone system, word processing, spreadsheets, calendaring/scheduling, E-mail, law library software.

- Real Property Tax - Using a state supplied software package, the department prints all tax bills, supporting reports, assessment rolls, and supports their day-to-day functions.

- Board of Elections - registration and absentee voter tracking.

- Community Services - patient billing system

- Highway - snow and ice system

- Public Health - Hospice, CHHA, patient billing, clinic inventory, clinic billing systems

- County Clerk - recorded document indexing and imaging, DBA’s, map system.

- Nursing Facilities - supporting a purchased package to help manage the facilities.

- Probation - case management, monetary tracking

- Records Management - record tracking system

- Sheriff’s Office - support computer-aided dispatch, records, & jail inmate tracking system

- Treasurer’s Office - financials including back taxes

Information & Technology Services evaluates and recommends changes to existing manual systems and any automated systems we already have. All county wide computer hardware and software purchases must be approved by Information & Technology Services.

The county has four in-house telephone PBX’s. Information & Technology Services is responsible for all additions/changes/moves to the telephone system. Most of these changes involve reprogramming of the phone switches.