By LAURA JAMESON ljameson@lockhaven.com
LOCK HAVEN - Clinton County residents should soon have the capability to purchase dog licenses online.
IT Director Ernie Jackson spoke to the Clinton County Board of Commissioners on Monday during its work session regarding the online payment along with other IT items.
Jackson said the county has done research into the online payment method after the Pennsylvania Senate passed Bill 764 of 2023, requiring all counties to provide an online service to purchase licenses for dogs.
Jackson said, after research and discussion with county Treasurer Michelle Kunes - whose office handles dog license payments - his recommendation is to enter into a contract with Fairfield Computer Services, LLC out of Oakwood, Ohio.
"The fee for it, if we go with their standard template, is $0. There is a $100 per hour labor charge if we do anything outside the standard template," he said.
According to Jackson, the standard template includes the form, a picture of the treasurer, county logo and basic county information.
"There is a convenience fee that would be charged to whoever wants to utilize the online service," he said. "The fee does not get charged back to the county, it's to the user."
Jackson said, if approved by the commissioners during its voting session on Thursday, set up for the site would "fairly simple."
"It looks like it would take about two days to set up, test and verify that everything is functioning properly," he said. "We should have no problem meeting the Feb. 1 deadline, which is outlined by the Senate Bill."
Jackson further noted the payments would be funneled to the treasurer's office, where it would be accounted for and sent to the state.
"(The money) would be sent to the treasurer, she would fill out her reports and then the money would be forwarded to the state," he said.
Minimal training will be necessary to utilize the system, he added.
Other IT related items that will be on the commissioners' agenda includes:
- A renewal with Cisco Duo Multi-Factor Authentication at an estimated cost of $15,000. Jackson said the county used the company's system in 2023 and has all its multi-factor authentication through it. This year, Jackson said the county needs to expand its usage.
"We need to expand that to include our email functionality," he said. The expansion would not get in the way of direct usage of county-owned cell phones but will make the usage of county emails outside of its system "a little more complicated."
Jackson said the county needs to expand its multi-factor authentication to include sign processes for the Department of Emergency Services communication center, especially those at the dispatch consoles; along with sheriff's personnel and employees at the correctional facility.
"That comes from the feds, the criminal justice system is requiring that anyone that has direct access to law enforcement information have multi-factor authentication to access their device," he said.
- Renewal of county website hosting service. Jackson said his department is looking for approval to continue a contract with Granicus - a company that is "one of the big players in governmental website hosting."
"They have been our agency now for three or four years," he said. "We've had virtually no down time… we've had two instances over the last three years where the site was down for about a half an hour while they rebooted their servers."
The cost for the renewal is seeing a five percent increase, which was budgeted, and comes to $4,862.03.
Jackson said his department has been in talks with Granicus to negotiate some advanced services in the contract. This would include consolidating its online payments for various county services.
- Potential buy-out of a leased copier in the IT Department. Jackson said the department's copier has been on a five-year lease, at $960 per year.
"Since that lease is ready to expire, there was a Fair Market Buy-Out at the end," he said. "We would like to proceed with purchasing the equipment and not leasing something new or buying something new."
Jackson said the cost of the buy-out and equipment purchase would come to about $932.49.
The board will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 25 in the second floor meeting room of the Piper Building, 2 Piper Way, Lock Haven. The meeting will also be live streamed on the county's Facebook page - Clinton County Government.
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