DISCUSSION: UPGRADING TELEPHONE SYSTEM FOR THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

Stutsman: Is everybody here for the phone thing? We were going to ask Cheryl to come over, is she going to be able to make it?

Peters: Cheryl, actually she is going to get here as soon as she can. We had one department head who is going to have to leave early due to an appointment and Cheryl will be late due to an appointment. She'll get here as soon as she can.

Stutsman: All right shall we go ahead and proceed then. All right. We have on the agenda upgrade telephone system for the County Administration Building. We started this discussion last week when we had representatives from Digital come in and talk to us about options for upgrading the phones. To back up a little further this all started with a discussion from the Board about putting in voice mail in the Board office and one thing led to another and pretty soon we have 3 options before us. So we thought before we proceed any further with this it might be a good idea to visit with some department heads that have had experience of putting in phone systems and also to involve other department and elected officials within this building to get their input as far as directions that the Board should go with this phone system. One of the options included just with the Board of Supervisors office another one included the Board and the Zoning and Recorders office and then the third option included the entire County Administration Building going towards a complete communications systems. So we're talking anywhere from $2,000 to $55,000, so I think the board just feels they need a little bit more direction and feedback from other departments and elected officials that this is going to impact.

Peters: The other thing too with complete communications systems, then that would hook the other buildings in with ours, so we need Information Services expertise and with changing technology what is it the people want?

Bolkcom: One other point of clarification, what's prompted our discussion was the Boards interest to have voice mail given the volume of calls we get and the the other option is the second and the third option was based on how the phone system is currently segregated. Apparently there are 4 different circuits and one of the circuits has the Supervisors, Zoning, and the Recorders Office on it and that's why those 3 were looked at as option 2. It wasn't because of who is in those offices or...

Conger: What was the cost on that one, that option?

Peters: (Inaudible).

Bolkcom: So then we got the third option, the whole building. That's how they were segregated, by how the circuits are currently set up on the existing phone system.

Stutsman: 17.

Peters: 17. I was partially right, I just forgot.

Stutsman: Just forget a little minor $10,000.

Director of Public Health Graham Dameron: I'm the person that has to leave, but I can give you a little input on our system. Carol has this information that Becky gave to her a few months ago if you want to look at it again. But we purchased a voicemail system from Iowa City, it used to be Telephone Company, but I think it's technology or something at this point. I think it was around 12,000 if I remember right. But it does have a voice mail system, it's a Panasonic system that we have had virtually maintenance free. I mean it's been excellent and as far as the phones themselves. We've had a little problem with the lines, but that's I think that's going to be a problem no matter who you deal with, you know like US West. But internally that system has been excellent. The voice mail I think has been also excellent. One aspect I like of our system that I don't like of other systems is that you get somebody, a live person when you call. The system that I'm not particularly fond of is the one where you don't. You get voice mail and you end up in some box that you never wanted to get into and they don't give you the options that you want.

Stutsman: Or you forget...

Dameron: (Inaudible) I'm getting down to that and then they say you've got the wrong number or nobody is there or something. So it's not very friendly to me, but this system I think is very good and invariably you get where you can really communicate with the voicemail system probably a lot better than you could be talking to them on an individual basis. It's rare that you get somebody that's available on the time that your calling. Maybe that's the disadvantage of the voicemail but on the other hand it does save a lot of going back and forth because you're trying to communicate with people. The paper messages are sometimes, they can be cryptic or it doesn't express the flavor or whatever. I think sometimes people tend to blame the person that is taking the message and again didn't get the message right and that eliminates that whole process. Plus the fact that sometimes people say they didn't get the message and you know and I think part of it is maybe I'm the person who was supposed to get the message and sometimes it may be the person who took the message, but it eliminates that whole problem there. There's various options you can do with that. I mean you can apply to it, mine didn't seem to work about replying to it internally but it certainly can be forwarded to another person which is advantageous too. If you don't want to take the call... Let's say Jonathan gets a call about this Secondary Roads situation, well then you can refer it to Mike and that message can be transferred to them. So that's been very good. I think there could be some communication link with our department as far as the system they have. I'm certain that could be worked out and could transfer messages or whatever.

Jordahl: Well yes this question of interconnectivity is kind of the thing we've been struggling with as you know on the computer implementation process and the reason Jean is here is maybe to address that. I don't know to what extent the conversations you may already have had with Digital Communications create an understanding of how that might fit with Graham's situation and our proceeding networking plan or not. You got something to contribute about that Jean?

Information Services Director Jean Schultz: I did talk to the person whose name you gave me and you can run voice and data over the fiber which we're talking about setting up here. What he was talking about I assume was basically then having the Health Department then use the phone system that would probably be here or it would be at one place. Doing that would possibly eliminate some of the Centrex lines and he said in order to determine if or how many of those lines then could be replaced would determine how many calls people make within the County versus outside the county.

Bolkcom: We already have the ability to dial 4 numbers and get to the Health Department.

Schultz: That's through Centrex that you can do that.

Bolkcom: Right. Would we still be able to do that if we got a system in this building, I assume we would.

Peters: Yes.

Bolkcom: OK.

Peters: Because that's the (inaudible) system.

Stutsman: Cletus and Jerry do you have any thoughts about upgrading your phone system, is it adequate? Have you thought about voice mail, is this something that you'd be interested in being a part of?

County Treasurer Cletus Redlinger: I'm not sure exactly how voice mail would enhance the operation of our office.

County Assessor Jerry Musser: I haven't given it a lot of thought, the voice mail itself, where you could be transferred to it, as I've used it a few times for calling other people, I don't mind. My main concern there is I want a human being answering the phone.

Redlinger: That's kind of the way I feel too.

Musser: I don't want to go anything different than that.

Redlinger: I've heard a lot of not derogatory remarks, but remarks from people that I want to talk to a person, I don't want to listen to the 17 different departments I can get to without that.

Dameron: The other advantage Sally that I could also add in this for you is that when the office is closed you can get the setup and it will go into the voice mail box if you choose. What we've done is if you know my extension you can put that message in the voicemail box after hours. We haven't released and we'd certainly be happy to give it to you, but we didn't want contractors calling in to environmental health specialists after hours, because it's sometimes where they want the inspection the next morning, well they feel if they put the message there they got the message and they can be out there the next morning. Well that's not the case they need to negotiate that so we don't provide that to the general public. But if people who have our extension want to get there they can leave that message there after hours. So that is another advantage to that.

Jordahl: Well there's...

Dameron: You don't get a live person in that case, but you do get...

Jordahl: ...but you do get a message from that person as you enter their mailbox do you not?

Dameron: Well you could put any message you wanted.

Jordahl: So the message could say something like if you wish to arrange an appointment for an inspection or something like that we'll need to discuss the schedule and that in person.

Dameron: Yes you could do that.

Jordahl: So as to clarify that to contractors. I mean I've called places that have sort of an alphabetical extension finding system where if you if you dispel the first 3 or 4 letters of the persons name in there that's enough detail for the system to determine who it is and then you get their mailbox.

Dameron: But see if you have a live person answering that phone, you don't need that kind of...

Jordahl: But I'm talking after hours here as a way of doing this. Let me hasten to clarify that nobody on the Board has any interest in having an automated system where you punch in and get a machine and punch numbers till (inaudible). We're just talking once it's determined that the person you want is not available you will have the option of leaving a message or getting their voicemail box. Some may be comfortable with it, some not. some of the people who aren't comfortable with voice mail leave a message with the secretary. People who are have access to the tape, or the computer chip or whatever.

Dameron: The thing is they will be able to tell you how many messages you have and it's amazing, it's absolutely amazing the amount of voice mail... I forget how many, it was something like 30,000 over a 3 month period.

Stutsman: At the Health Department?

Dameron: At the Health Department. I mean just incredible. I don't know (inaudible) but you can track the number of voice mail messages you had over a certain period of time. Our system can do that.

Stutsman: If I'm at home...

Dameron: Can tell you how many you have had.

Stutsman:...can I call in and get my voice messages?

Dameron: Absolutely. You can call in anywhere and call in, at least our system you can call in with the number and get your messages, and you can leave messages.

Jordahl: You can call in and change your message, you can call in and change the number which you're forwarding to.

Stutsman: Carol, did you have a comment?

Peters: I was just going to say one of the differences between Graham's system and Cheryl's system is up at DHS they actually have dedicated numbers for people like us who want to get right directly to the person, leave a message for them, so that you're not taking up the attendant's time.

Stutsman: Is that that backdoor option or whatever they called it?

Peters: You might call it that.

Dameron: You can do that with us if you wanted to dial in the number that we have that is the number for the voice mail you can do that.

Stutsman: And then give the extension.

Dameron: It doesn't give the extension, you would have to know the extension.

Stutsman: Well and that's the way it is with DHS. You have to give the extension.

Peters: I misspoke, because I guess I've never had access to it. I probably have that number I just don't have it delineated out.

Dameron: I mean we can give out that number we just...

Stutsman: Then it loses it's effectiveness if everybody has that number.

Dameron: You know if it's packed you don't want everything backed up.

Peters: the other thing too with both his system and Cheryl's system the voice mail came with the package, with the new system.

Dameron: Right, with the phones.

Redlinger: Is this just an extension of that system they currently have?

Jordahl: It's a different system, but same company. Right.

Stutsman: Thank you Graham.

Bolkcom: Thanks Graham.

Peters: If you're talking about options number one and 2 there would be an addition to, if you're talking about option number 3, which is (inaudible) system, that would be the (inaudible) system.

Stutsman: And the advantage of number 3 is that it's geared so that we could update it continuously. You know that it's...

Peters: The only thing that this one...Like I said in visiting with these people we've kind of gone the full gamut here, it was a total communication system and that was with Omega. Yes, Omega. Theirs then would encompass using not only the phone, the fax, and the computers. So that when you come in in the morning you log onto your computer and you have everything in front of you so that you would know exactly how many faxes, how many phone calls or voice mails, etc.

Stutsman: Jerry...

Musser: This is, what you're thinking about here involve a physical change in the phones? An actual changing of the telephone?

Stutsman: Consoles and stuff.

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: Yes.

Musser: Just to further than then, I think the biggest problem I can recall having with the current system is the durability of the phones. We have a problem, it's just the one with our phone system.

Bolkcom: Yes, wears out.

Musser: Conked out.

Bolkcom: Right.

Musser: It's an ongoing thing. A couple of lines that we always have, it seems like we're constantly having a problem with...

Redlinger: I think that for what the phones cost, I don't think we have a very good product.

Bolkcom: The existing phones?

Redlinger: Yes.

Bolkcom: Yes.

Stutsman: Well, I wasn't on the Board then.

Redlinger: As I recall.

Bolkcom: They are expensive.

Duffy: Blame it on NASA.

Peters: I can't remember when....

Bolkcom: There's Charlie.

Stutsman: Was it Charlie?

Peters: All I know is all of a sudden somebody left and I got (inaudible).

Jordahl: I have to agree though Cletus. These phones aren't particularly durable...

Redlinger: It isn't as bad now as it was after the first 2 years we were in here. We just had a terrible amount of problems with the telephones.

Stutsman: And you have to have...

Peters: Well the differences were....

Duffy: I wasn't here then.

Redlinger: I think that's probably...

Peters: Our service has just, they're great.

Redlinger: We probably, the guy probably comes at least the next day after we...

Peters: A lot of times they come the same day.

Redlinger: They used to come a week or 2 later.

Stutsman: Jean, did you have a comment?

Schultz: I was just going to say, I don't know about other departments, but our department would really benefit from voice mail. I get a lot of messages and play phone tag a lot with people and support people will call to tell you how to change a profile for the Assessor's, but they don't want to leave a message because then you might not write it down right and so I don't know, it would be real helpful for us.

Jordahl: Yes, I want to draw upon my experience at the University to talk about how voice mail worked there. We had a 3 minute recording time for people. And you can say a lot of message in 3 minutes, and so a person is able to really tell you what the problem is. It's advantageous because you then are able to give a more professional response because you're not off the top of your head looking around for pieces of paper, you can go find the answer and then call them back and give them a whole answer. So it can be very helpful in a way.

Stutsman: Any other...

Duffy: From my votes, yes. I would like to wait and see how we come out on the budget. This thing isn't going to happen over night anyway. It takes quite a while, but I'd like to see when the budgets come in just what we're going to end up with. It's not that it's not needed, I've been around long enough to know, I've been quite concerned with these budgets so far.

Jordahl: Speaking of the budget. Steve raised the budget and that's in terms of the practical wiring sense of things, that's why Jean is here now, about how this fits together with the computer implementation, the networking plan. On a budgetary level, I want to raise that question. I don't know if it's appropriate to go into it in too much depth on this agenda item, but it raises the question organizationally too, of if the phone system is in some way intimately linked to the computer system, maybe they ought to be administered under the same department. I just raise that as both a budgetary and organizational question, perhaps for future discussion, but should this be part of Information Services?

Peters: Whatever you do, when you're looking at a different phone system, Information Services is a vital component.

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: So you're saying, should they be the ones to decide if and how we proceed?

Jordahl: Well, not necessarily decide how we proceed, but to, we've been involved in a joint process for computer implementation with all the department heads and elected officials and staff that are interested in attending, through the What/When and various sub-committees, it strikes me that this is a type of networking. This connects intimately to the networking and we see putting personal computers on people's desks as part of the networking proposal, even through it's not the network itself in some sense, it's a computer that could stand alone, it is essential for the network to work, that there be a node at the end that people can connect to. So in the same way if the telephones are working through the same lines to do interconnection between people, it seems to me that there's a natural Countywide technology base through the wires aspect through the phone system that seems to be very harmonious to the Information Services general function. But I could be wrong about that, there could be a way in which the phones are reasonably separate.

Peters: If you're looking at Countywide also...

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Peters: There is an economy scale to be gained in some places, you can use your T-1 connections and thereby lowering the cost to your Centrex System, because you won't have to have as many nars..

Jordahl: What's a nar?

Bolkcom: What did she just say.

Peters: Well, for all the phones that we have, and for all the lines that we have in this County, actual, when we say 356-6000, 356-6001, etc, etc. We do not actually have that many "US West" lines. What we do is we have 28 nars and they function as in going and outgoing calls.

Jordahl: Do you know what nar stands for?

Peters: National (inaudible)...

Stutsman: That's not important, go ahead.

Peters: What it does is it accesses your system. So what I'm saying is and we are charged for each one of those. So if you go Countywide, you're using more capabilities over the same lines, there might be a way of using the T-1's to connect buildings, so that you don't have to use as many nars and thereby you would not be charges for... You could say to US West, we don't need that many any more.

Jordahl: Right, and that's the kind of thing that it strikes me that Information Services might be a natural to understand and suggest, where if we tried to keep on top of all that ourselves where they're already dealing with this kind of connection, Jean you're being spoken of in the 3rd person here, what do you think?

Schultz: Yes, we don't at this point have anybody who's really knowledgeable about phone systems. Well that's number... Just in talking with a guy from the phone system this morning, there's a lot of analysis that would need to be done and I'm not sure if we have the expertise for us just to be the only ones doing it.

Peters: The last time, there was a committee set up.

Stutsman: Well and I was wondering if we shouldn't look at...

Peters: (Inaudible) committee.

Stutsman: An in-house committee and then just looking at some options. I guess the first decision the Board needs to make is do we want to look at this communications system versus just the Board of Supervisors having voice mail versus the 2nd option or...

Peters: And Bill has put on... He was going to, I talked to him last week, a CD-ROM that kind of explains a total communications system and I have not had an opportunity to sit down and view that. I only have information from the vendors.

Stutsman: Does the Board feel comfortable just having a committee? And in-house committee start... Because I agree with Charlie. I think we need to look at this in context with the budget, but I think we can be doing our homework too, ahead of time, and see what some options are.

Bolkcom: Yes, well surveying the department heads would be a really good start.

Jordahl: That's what I was going to say, survey...

Bolkcom: Who wants and who doesn't and then try to make a decision from there.

Jordahl: Because we may have...

Redlinger: Could you put something together as to how it would actually work before you survey department heads?

Stutsman: Sure.

Jordahl: Sure.

Peters: It's on the computer, or if it isn't on the computer, it will be on so...

Bolkcom: You're talking about a CD-ROM?

Peters: That explains it to them.

Redlinger: Betty's PC?

Schultz: And also what the guy from the phone company said is that they can help do some kind of a survey sheet, but what we need to keep track of for a week or 2 is when people make phone calls, do they call other County numbers or do they call outside numbers because that would make a big difference as far as the number of lines that you may be able to save and if that was an off-set, having higher speed lines, you know like the T-1 line versus the 56K frame relay. So there's a lot of analysis that needs to go into it.

Peters: And very technical.

Redlinger: If we did this option number 3 for $55,000, is that a firm figure, or are there additional recurring costs, because we went to this system?

Peters: Well you'll always have your maintenance. Well not for the first year, but after that, you'll always have your maintenance costs. But then you'll also have additional costs any time you want to add a line, there's an additional cost, but that's a US West cost, that's not...

Redlinger: Right, I understand that, but is there additional costs every month, like is the system more expensive every month because of this upgrade?

Schultz: If you have to do a T-1 line versus say the 56 K between the buildings, yes there is quite a difference in costs.

Redlinger: Is that a monthly cost?

Schultz: Yes.

Redlinger: OK.

Stutsman: I thought it said because we own the company there wasn't.... or own the system...

Peters: Well when we talk about the T-1's, that was included in this system. One of the things that this committee would really want to do is to interview different communications systems. Because as you interview different ones, it's an educational process, you always learn something new. By doing that I think we can get down to a system that would really be functional for the County and what the department heads want.

Redlinger: You're not talking about a system, you're talking about different companies like Omega and Digital?

Peters: Yes.

Stutsman: Yes, we just touched the surface as far as...

Bolkcom: We've got one company here. My sense, Cletus, is that kind of the description Graham gave about being able to get messages and check messages, it was kind of the basic system that I'm interested in. We've got phones now that have 15 or 18 buttons on them and I use 2 of them.

Redlinger: That's true.

Bolkcom: There are a whole bunch of like hundreds of different options available.

Redlinger: I hate that when they're smarter than I am.

Peters: Well and basically the phones are being made to...

Bolkcom: They're kind of like a computer, they have tons of capacity and we'd really have to do some training and try and figure out what specific things people, like conference calling is kind of a nice feature, call forwarding, but I think at a real basic level, being able to leave a message for a co-worker, or people on the outside to leave messages for us and us being able to check your mail from home, that kind of thing would be...

Redlinger: I don't know if that would work for us because we have so much where we have to ask questions, get answers right away...

Bolkcom: Sure.

Redlinger: ...rather than to give a monologue of some kind over the phone as an answer, but I'd be glad to look into it.

Stutsman: OK.

Jordahl: Well that's where the live person answering the phone would make the difference, you could determine that, well this is not a question that you're going to be able to do via voice mail. You're going to have to talk to someone, you can either hold or call back or something. Kind of fence them out. If it's somewhat of a personal message to you, well then it might work with voice mail.

Stutsman: Cheryl, do you have some...We're just talking about systems and had asked you and Graham to come in to share your experiences in setting up your phone systems.

Department of Human Services Area Administrator Cheryl Whitney: Well first of all, I continue to thank you all for that phone system. It has really been a huge improvement for our office and our staff and our clients in making reaches, which is wonderful. When we set up a committee to talk about what kind of features we wanted for our phone system and what are our priorities, you all are talking about conference calling, call forwarding, all those kinds of standard features, how important are they to us, sort of prioritizing those things. I think that it's good. Making decisions about whether it be a real person answering the phone or will it go to automated attendant or whether it be some of both. Being able to know, with our office, we have what I call that back door number, so for people who are frequent callers who want to get directly to somebody, you couldn't do that, you have to disturb the receptionist, whoever is answering the phone. The voice mail system being able to access, if I go to meetings, I can call back and get my messages, I can return calls, so that I can kind of continue my business and our staff are able to do that from wherever they are at. It really helps an awful lot. We do, you would be surprised how many times you can leave a message for someone and they can go to the next step even without personally talking with someone. So that voice mail system I think is really helpful. The Board approved that we would work with McGladrey and Pullen when we did ours. They helped us some with identifying what it is we needed, they wrote the RFP for us, and then reviewed responses that came back which was really helpful. I was just looking, we ended up our system was $38,000 with the voice mail. When we looked, another thing that we really wanted to watch was what kind of maintenance agreement are you going to have and how costly is that because that's your long term expense and can eat up what you save on the front end.

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Whitney: So those are just kind of off the top of my head some...

Stutsman: Cheryl, when you said you had that committee, was that an in-house committee within the department and then did you work with McGladrey's?

Whitney: That committee did.

Stutsman: OK.

Whitney: Right, we had somebody from each unit on that. It was really helpful, because staff could think of things that administrator's don't.

Stutsman: McGladrey's Carol, was that a separate contract with them?

Peters: Yes.

Stutsman: And they wrote the RFP to send out to different contractors and things.

Schultz: What was the cost for (inaudible)...

Whitney: Well...I don't remember.

Bolkcom: Like 7 grand?

Peters: Did you say 35?

Whitney: It had to be more than that.

Peters: That's the...

Whitney: That's the...

Peters: I remember visiting about the 3,500. I don't remember if that was the total or not. I think maybe it was, Cheryl.

Stutsman: Was it worth the 3,500 Cheryl?

Whitney: Oh, yes.

Stutsman: OK.

Bolkcom: Well Carol, you sound like you could consult us on that.

Whitney: It was more than that, but that, I just quickly pulled out some things, but this is their, one of their letters and that's the project fees, $3,500.

Duffy: I thought it was about $5,000, but I could be wrong.

Whitney: We could go back on some other things and look.

Jordahl: This is kind of... Kind of goes in the same general direction of talking about Information Services having oversight over this. I don't mean to overload you Jean, because obviously Jean's got plenty to do, and Jean's already got so much to do that it's really a question whether anything additional would be reasonable. But on the other hand, it is a recurring question. It existed in your operation and we're asking it again, and Carol knows a lot about this, has been talking to the consultants and... We've got some institutional knowledge, experience with this process, what do we get from a consultant that we don't know, I guess.

Stutsman: Well and I guess we need to ask Jean and Carol, are you in the position to head this up?

Peters: I'm not qualified for a full communications system. I know about phones, but I'm not up to speed on new technology.

Bolkcom: Well that's what we're getting. I don't think we need to complicate this more than it needs to be complicated. We're looking for voice mail and we're talking about phones. We're not talking about other things right now and I... You know we need modems to do Internet stuff and e-mail stuff. We need a sufficient number of phone lines to do that, whether it's T-1 or 56K, whatever those things are, we'll have to, Jean will have to be involved with that when we talk about any upgrade to the phone system, but I don't really see us, I guess I see them as kind of separate things.

Stutsman: Do you?

Bolkcom: Yes.

Jordahl: What does that mean about the process of deciding what to do or weeding through various proposals?

Bolkcom: We're looking for a phone system that has voice mail as cheap as we can get it. We need sufficient phone lines.

Stutsman: So that's the direction that we need to...

Bolkcom: Sufficient phone lines, yes.

Jordahl: But does that or does that not mean that we hire McGladrey and Pullen to sit with us?

Bolkcom: I don't know that it does. I look to Carol for that.

Peters: Do you want to keep it just to the Administration Building or do you want to network with the other buildings?

Stutsman: See I guess I was thinking we were looking at a lot of options. Thinking where we were going to get the best product for our dollars. I guess, yes, we talked about voice mail to begin with, but then when these other options were offered, I thought, well maybe we can get a lot more and not invest a whole lot more and maybe we'd be foolish to spend the $2,000 for just voice mail for the Supervisors, when, and I don't want to minimize $55,000, but still I think there's a lot available for $55,000 and we'd be better to do that and get this taken care of for the next 10 years.

Bolkcom: Well I'm open... When I say voice mail I'm talking about everybody who needs it and wants it in this building, but I mean, I still, if I want to talk to the Health Department, I dial 6040. I don't know how much simpler it could be. Trying to connect us more than that, will I dial 2 numbers instead of 4? I guess I'm not sure in calling Cheryl, dial 6050 or go in the back door with this other 7 digit number and 3 digit extension.

Schultz: I think you would still dial those numbers, the question would be would you be going outside through Centrex and with those costs or would you be going through the overall internal County system to do that and you'd have to analyze what the savings would be one way versus the other and like I said how many calls are in the County versus outside the County. As far as our staff goes, we don't have the expertise to really... We haven't worked with phone systems that much before.

Bolkcom: OK, what role....

Whitney: With Centrex, you don't pay for your outgoing calls, right?

Schultz: There's some kind of a charge for local calls.

Peters: Centrex, it's the Centrex System that enables us to utilize the 4 digit calling.

Whitney: But as I remember with discussion on all that stuff, there was discussion about if, they've always speculated that some day we'll have to pay for every call we make outgoing, but that's never occurred.

Peters: No.

Whitney: So I don't know that there's costs, I mean it's easier to use 4 digits, I don't know if there's costs to using 4 digits as opposed to using the others.

Bolkcom: That would be the question Jean raised is one we'd have to get some guidance on I suspect.

Peters: But you still, we utilize our Centrex now to access other offices by using the 4 digit dialer. But the other thing we use the Centrex for is to utilize any incoming and outgoing calls. We use the 7 digit or the 10 digit.

Bolkcom: We can't continue to do the same thing we're doing now with the phone system in this building?

Peters: Oh sure.

Bolkcom: OK, so is the T-1, is that us laying out cable? When you're talking about T-1?

Schultz: T-1 would probably be from the phone company.

Peters: They would do that.

Schultz: They said if we wanted to interconnect the buildings that we then instead of doing it with 56K prime relay, we may need to use T-1 instead if you wanted to try to combine them on the same line.

Bolkcom: Data and voice.

Schultz: Yes.

Stutsman: What's...

Jordahl: There's a question as we look at this that we need to keep in mind, this idea of surveying the departments is not simply one of how much of what is a forgone conclusion that we need to do, but rather of whether there is a need at all to do this. Offices may be very different in their need for this. Graham's office has a lot of phone traffic and people requesting these all hours of the day and night. Maybe they already have a phone system and Cheryl's office similarly, but maybe the Treasurer's Office is different. I think the survey of need is an important part of this picture.

Stutsman: We need to decide where we go from here. Do we want to appoint a committee and start looking at these options and then see where we're at at budget time or do we want to just go ahead with the voice mail for the Board of Supervisors and just say forget it then or...

Jordahl: Well he did say that we could go ahead with the voice mail for the Board of Supervisors and at least digital and that if we went with digital for expansion of the system, we had...

Stutsman: That we were hooked into digital.

Jordahl: That he would rebate that cost to us basically, that we would not be paying essentially anything for the voice mail for the Supervisors during an interim period if we chose to expand the system to go County wide after as a result of the committee study.

Bolkcom: Providing we go with Digital.

Jordahl: Assuming we go with Digital.

Whitney: With that company then, tied into that.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: Right.

Stutsman: Well and...

Duffy: Here's a case here, I'm not too much for any more committees. I think we could have a few people to have a committee to look into that.

Stutsman: Well the other thing is that we've got a lot going on, and everybody's got a lot going on. Do we want to tackle this or do we want to make it very simple and just go with voice mail?

Schultz: What about your second option?

Stutsman: With Recorder's and the...

Bolkcom: Zoning?

Stutsman: That was $17,000.

Whitney: As opposed to 2.

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: Versus 55 for the whole County.

Redlinger: What was the first one?

Stutsman: First one was 2, and that was just voice mail for the Supervisors. 17 was for the Recorder's and....

Redlinger: Can you go that way and then build on it from there?

Stutsman: Zoning.

Bolkcom: We can if we use the same company. But, yes.

Jordahl: So the usefulness of a committee, I think it's been suggested here is to decide in advance whether this is in fact the company we want to go with before we put money into it and start committing ourselves?

Stutsman: Well and I guess I would like that analysis too. Where do we get the best, and not just for today, but for the future. I...

Redlinger: Well this isn't something that's an emergency type thing anyway. You can spend just about as much time on it as you need to, really.

Whitney: But if McGladrey did it for $3,500, if they brought in the consultants, wrote the RFP's and did the analysis, the financial analysis, and the needs analysis, to me that's very cheap.

Peters: But it's also an in-house committee. There's also an in-house committee at DHS that worked with them.

Whitney: We did a lot of work.

Peters: Yes.

Whitney: It's just that I had the confidence that somebody knew a lot more than I did about what we were doing, and that helped an awful lot. That saved us a lot of time and probably some mistakes.

Bolkcom: Cheryl, what time process, how much time would it, to go back. Cletus makes a point, we're not really in a...There's no time frame, what would be your sense if we were to kind of go about this not at a break neck speed to get this done, but a couple of months, 3 or 4 months?

Whitney: Well I would think in a couple of months if your committee met for a couple of months, you should be able to identify what it is that you want.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Whitney: Then you've got your time to write the RFP after that, get it out to people, get a response back, and you'd probably need 3 weeks for that, analyze the proposals and then make some decisions. We did it on a pretty tight time frame. I see that we led the RFP on April 28th and we wanted to have this thing purchased by the end of the fiscal year. We were real tight.

Bolkcom: Well if we took a little bit of time, I know Charlie's concerned about the budget, would be, maybe make it some budget decisions and maybe over like a 90 day period, or 60 day period, try and come up with a recommendation from an in-house committee that might meet a couple, 3 times.

Stutsman: OK, who wants to head the committee?

Bolkcom: And not break our necks?

Stutsman: Volunteers?

Bolkcom: I'd be willing to help out on it. It would be good to have a representative from each department.

Stutsman: Yes, I think....

Schultz: It doesn't have to be the department head.

Stutsman: No, and I'm looking for one person to take the lead on it, is what I'm looking for, but I agree too, that we need to have representatives from every department and...

Redlinger: It might be better if it wasn't the department head. Somebody that uses it on a day to day basis, I know I try not to talk on phones...We have people down there that answer the phone all the time and maybe it should be one of those people.

Bolkcom: Good point.

Whitney: You really do need a cross representation. As we said, I thought I had some ideas about what we wanted and when we met with that committee, there were a lot of things that came up that they had better ideas about so it was good.

Jordahl: Well that settles that then.

Stutsman: What?

Jordahl: Nothing.

Bolkcom: Keeping with that kind of theory, maybe rather than having a Board member on it, we should have one of our staff members be on it.

Jordahl: Well there's a thought.

Stutsman: Who is that, I wonder.

Jordahl: Staff's not very busy right now.

Stutsman: Should we ask Carol?

Peters: She resigned.

Schultz: You know I, we have the RFP and then the report from the proposals that came in. I even just this RFP I think would be really helpful in giving you some direction on things to discuss with that committee.

Bolkcom: Sure, yes.

Peters: I'll make a deal with you.

Stutsman: All right.

Jordahl: Uh-oh, here it comes.

Peters: If you could wait until February, I'd be glad to work with the departments. The only reason I say that is because I had scheduled some time off that I just have to take.

Jordahl: Uh-huh.

Stutsman: Well how does the Board feel about that? Do you want to go ahead with just the voice mail for just the Board office for right now?

Duffy: I don't know if that would look too good to the rest of the groups.

Jordahl: I think as has been said, it's not a crisis though, either. The Board of Supervisors has gotten along for 150 years without voice mail. Another couple of months might...

Bolkcom: We could say that about a number of things.

Jordahl: Another couple of months might be OK.

Bolkcom: Well I think we're going to find out that, I mean Graham and Cheryl's comments this morning that it's really a pretty effecting thing to have once we do get it.

Peters: Actually, I look at it kind of like a fax machine. You can't use it all the... You think I really don't need that, but we now have 2 fax machines in the building and I know our office could certainly... It's just something, if you build it, they will come.

Bolkcom: Right.

Duffy: I've got some use with that...

Stutsman: I guess I could take up Carol's offer and wait until February and head this up and maybe the Board can think about whether they want to go ahead with the voice mail for the Board Office and then we can start working with surveying the department heads and there's been some good ideas generated this morning so...

Jordahl: I would just point to the need to keep this in mind as we go through the budget process.

Bolkcom: How do other people feel about waiting until February? Cletus, do you... OK.

Jordahl: I think we should wait until February. My point about the budget is that we're going to be somewhere along in the budget by the time this thing kind of starts studying and if we're going to want to implement at some near point after the completion of the study, then we ought to have it in the budget for that fiscal year. This could be a chunk. If you're talking about $55,000 as a possible range, plus the cost of a consultant and...

Bolkcom: Or we have Carol be the main assistant. We could begin sooner, but not have Carol shoulder the whole... Be the point person, we could have someone else be the point person and using her expertise. Because if we are going to budget for this, we are going to need to know before... We're going to need to know in early February what the number is.

Peters: I have another number there for the whole system and it was not as high as $55,000.

Bolkcom: OK, so that gets us in the ball park.

Peters: And Norstem's been really good.

Whitney: We've been really pleased with them.

Jordahl: To go back to the idea of linking Information Services and the phone system, we could budget for the phone system as part of our budget process this year and under the rubric of networking, if we choose not to find that there's not a need expressed by the departments or it's less expensive than we anticipated, we have a staged 5 year implementation program for the networking that could be accelerated if there were additional moneys available. So if we called this part of that same thing, it would just be prioritizing which comes first, is it the phones or the additional computers or something and just within that budget line? So I think if we put this in the budget as part of the Information Services budget, not to say that Jean would have to know everything about phone systems or run them, then it would be... Because it has that central information function then if we decide not to do it, that could just be a species of deciding to prioritize other computer functions over a new phone system.

Schultz: As long as you put the increase in budget, as long as you don't say out of the money that's there for networking, we have to get a phone system out of it.

Jordahl: Yes, right. Exactly. I'm talking about putting money in the budget for the phone system, but put it in the networking budget.

Bolkcom: Well when we talked about this last time, Steve brought up the idea with the existing money that we've set aside for the computer plan, is there money in that to pay for the phone system?

Schultz: For the phone system, no.

Bolkcom: And we were looking at a 3 year period at around $18,000 a year or something, was that what they proposed?

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: And that is the danger of putting it in that budget is that it will then be there and Supervisors in the future can say, well that's for our phone system instead of that's for our computers. We did want to isolate and computerize and make sure the County got up to speed, so I guess I'm of 2 minds about that. I'm just thinking. I just want to bring up the budget question. We could put in a whole different line, put in the Supervisors budget.

Peters: Actually the last time, it was 18 and that's where we also paid for our maintenance agreement out of central services.

Stutsman: Central services.

Jordahl: Central services, all right. That makes just as much sense. Maybe more.

Peters: Because Central Services (inaudible).

Schultz: We certainly want to be involved, at this point, we just have a lot on our plate with the networking plans to get those things accomplished that's why I'm not just all of a sudden offering to head this up.

Bolkcom: Sure.

Schultz: Because we just have a limit to what we can get done.

Jordahl: Well I guess I would prefer then to see it in central services and we could just talk about...

Peters: Yes we already have a line item in there.

Jordahl: ...re-allocating those funds if it turns our that we don't implement a phone system to other places which I would argue might include networking.

Stutsman: Well let's...

Bolkcom: So it sounds like we should, if we're not going to get a consultant to help us, we probably need to wait until February, unless someone's going to come forward and help lead this.

Peters: Yes, even with the committee, I think unless somebody turns up with some extraordinary expertise, McGladrey and Pullen, they really did a good job for us.

Stutsman: Yes, I don't think...

Peters: For $3,500 for the whole scheme.

Stutsman: ...I'm ready to make a decision for not a consultant. I think maybe after our committee meets a lot of time, they may make a recommendation that that's the best way to go, so...

Bolkcom: Is it possible to meet sooner and have a consultant hired and a consultant reporting back to us by early February when...

Peters: I'll be honest, I'm just overloaded.

Stutsman: Carol can't do, Joe, and we all are feeling overloaded, you know, and I guess...

Peters: It's a good way to be, it sure makes the job interesting and enjoyable.

Stutsman: The days just fly, don't they Carol.

Peters: And they're good days.

Stutsman: Well let's think about it for a little bit, if we want to proceed before February and then...Somebody's thinking about...

Jordahl: Membership on this committee, I suggested it should be representation from every department, much like the computer implementation process.

Stutsman: Definitely Carol and Jean. A couple Supervisors.

Peters: Because the users have so much to cover.

Stutsman: Or maybe just one Supervisor.

Bolkcom: Are we talking about this building principally then?

Stutsman: Uh-huh.

Jordahl: Oh, I thought we were talking about the whole shooting match.

Bolkcom: Well we're talking about...

Peters: We need to...

Stutsman: Those are one of the options we need to decide, whether it's this building or the whole...

Jordahl: Well and as much as we want to survey the departments about their needs, I don't know how we would, who would we choose to leave out?

Bolkcom: Well the Health Department and Human Services already have phone systems.

Jordahl: All right.

Bolkcom: That would be where I would start, I guess but... We don't want to waste people's time.

Stutsman: Yes, but Cheryl and Graham are going to have a lot to offer as far as their experiences in lieu of this whole, but yes...

Jordahl: Yes, and there's the question of how they would work together. Is there some question of the compatibility of these phone systems, that's surely got to be maintained.

Stutsman: Well, let's think about this and for right now we'll wait until February unless we want to start with some things before then.

Peters: You might, if anybody has any good ideas to put them away.

Stutsman: OK, that's a good idea.

Peters: Suggestions.

Reverend Bob Welsh: Sally, quickly, I think what I hear Jonathan saying and I would like to support, having heard that digital presentation, I would urge you not to think of this as a phone system, but to think in terms of putting together a communication system and let me mention the difference at that point. I think it's obvious. It's not just talking on the line, it's the whole transmitting of documents, what we have now is nothing compared to what it's going to be like 5 years from now. I guess I have a feeling you'd have to think in terms of setting up a system, use your imagination for documents to be transferred very easily. I can (inaudible) those.

Stutsman: I agree. I guess that's the way I think about it too. Is this an opportunity to really expand to a whole communications systems versus just putting in a voice mail system. So, I think those are the options that we need to look at. OK, anything else? Thank you for coming up and being a part of the discussion.

Peters: I had a...

Stutsman: Go ahead.

Peters: Under 5A, did you want to look at the speaker phone?

Stutsman: What speaker?

Jordahl: Well I asked Scott to respond to the question of how could we enhance the audio, both in the room and from the room if a person were on a conference call. Whether it's a supervisor in another location, or perhaps a consultant or some expert or something that we might consult for input during a meeting. To just make it work better. Some fairly low cost, in fact free I think he said, adjustments could be made to do that with the installation of a new phone system. I think including patching a line directly into the amplifier here and hanging a microphone in the ceiling that would pick up input from the people that are attending the meeting. So at no cost or at extremely low cost, I would certainly like to ask that question.

Bolkcom: I think it's a good idea. I know that Andy Small, who does the Supervisors meetings has also talked to us about having a mike placed in the back of the room to pick up audio from audience members. He raised concern about wiring it through our system, though I do believe and feedback.

Stutsman: Andy or...

Bolkcom: Andy did. So we'd want to connect with him about that. But...

Peters: I think Scott had a lot more exposure to...

Bolkcom: OK.

Stutsman: Well I think...

Peters: The systems.

Stutsman: The system is worth pursuing. Charlie does that sound OK to you. OK.

Peters: So do you folks want to get back to me then just by notice to which station your interested in.

Jordahl: Station?

Peters: Well which unit you're interested in.

Bolkcom: Cheapest one.

Stutsman: Yes.

Peters: Well with the least expensive one you cannot have (inaudible).

Stutsman: So what's the next expensive one?

Peters: 725.

Bolkcom: What is that a new phone.

Jordahl: What are we talking about.

Peters: Just speaker phone options.

Jordahl: Speaker phone is 725 dollars?

Peters: Yes. And that's without the extension of a microphone. That would be another cost. It would go to $906. You not only have the station but you also have microphones.

Bolkcom: So what's the microphone exactly. Is that the hanging mike in the back?

Peters: Yes.

Stutsman: It will probably go from 3 to $700.

Bolkcom: Is that principally hooked into the phone system or into the sound system.

Peters: Both.

Bolkcom: OK.

Jordahl: I don't know how we got from 3 to $700.

Stutsman: So this is the equipment.

Peters: Yes. So just let me know what you decide.

Stutsman: OK.

Bolkcom: I think to have good audio in this room is worth the investment and having good sound equipment so that it picks up in the audience members. We're spending a fair amount of money to do the meetings through Andy. It makes sense to have good sound. For those rare occasions when we either talk to somebody, when a Supervisor is missing or when we've done interviews or the County Attorney or whoever has to join us by phone, it's good to be able to hear us both ways.

Duffy: Well some audio systems work different than others. If you pick up everything that's said a couple of people would visit and we wouldn't really want that to be public. I think that's a lot of different places, churches have systems.

Bolkcom: Right.

Jordahl: That's why it's a reasonable thing to study as part of the committees work.

Duffy: Yes that would be one thing.

Stutsman: But aren't we telling Carol now to go ahead with that if it works with Andy's equipment and stuff.

Bolkcom: I think so.

Jordahl: I am.

Stutsman: Yes.

Peters: To go ahead.

Stutsman: Yes I think there is 3. OK are we ready for a short break?

Jordahl: Yes.

Stutsman: OK and then we'll recess for a short bit and come back.

Recessed at 10:35 a.m.; reconvened at 10:40 a.m.

(Continued in Part 3)