By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The Board of Selectwomen voted Wednesday to help safeguard cyber security for town government, approving two contracts that will move data and services from municipal offices to more secure cloud-based technology. 

The two contracts were approved unanimously: one for $9,984 with Quality Data Service for data hosting services, and a second contract for $129,559 with Total Communications, Inc., to maintain the town’s telephone service for all departments and schools. Approval of the annual contracts is contingent on review by the Town Attorney. 

The two contracts both reflect efforts by officials to relocate town data and technology services off local servers and into cloud storage.

The town currently uses servers in town offices to process records, store data and for other services instead of off-site services provided by professional hosting companies, IT Director Eileen Zhang told the selectwomen. The town’s IT Department has been working to move more data and maintenance services to outside technology companies, she said.

The trend now is for municipalities to provide more services online, such as paying tax bills, registering for events and obtaining other municipal services. That generally proves to be more convenient, less expensive and more secure than more complex individual local servers storing data and providing computer services, Zhang explained after the meeting.

Municipalities are “moving business operations into the cloud to reduce costs and increase security,” she said. “The market is demanding it — they want to do business online.”

At the meeting, Selectwoman Candice Savin asked if moving data off site would make it more vulnerable to breaches since private information might be more open to outsiders. 

Actually, hosting companies must meet higher security standards than required for local town servers, Zhang said. “They have a higher bar to meet.” 

Town Assessor Paul Friia agreed that moving data is safer, and more convenient. He told the meeting that Quality Data Service is already processing online tax payments for the town and specializes in serving municipal governments.

Working with the hosting company “streamlines our process,” he said. “They have the ability to resolve a problem immediately.”

The newly contracted services will help the Assessor and Tax Collector’s offices coordinate data and resolve issues without having to first go through the IT Department, he said. Since the departments’ respective systems now are separate, the IT Department has to intercede to transfer some data between offices or provide answers to tax questions. 

Friia also confirmed, after the meeting, that moving data off site to hosting services is better for the town as a whole. “The data is kept in different locations; it’s a lot safer that way,” Friia said. “If someone were to hack into our system or any system with only one server, it could either damage the data or hold that data hostage.”

Street closures OK’d for community events

The selectwomen on Wednesday also unanimously approved road closings and other safety measures to be taken for three community events planned this fall: 

• 10^th annual “Slice of Saugatuck Festival” on Saturday, Sept. 10, sponsored in the Saugatuck business district by the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce.
• “Fitness & Health Day,” sponsored by the Westport Downtown Association, along Main Street on Saturday, Sept. 17.
• “Fitness & Health 5k Road Run” on Saturday, Sept. 17, along a route mapped through town, also sponsored by the Westport Downtown Association.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and currently teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.