Pictured, from left, Warsaw Mayor Joseph Thallemer, Board Member George Clemens and Board Member Jeff Grose listen as department heads explain how the technology upgrades will impact them.

WARSAW — The city of Warsaw realizes that technology is the future and hopes to make Warsaw’s future a little easier with an upgraded network. The upgrades were discussed and approved during the Board of Works meeting held this morning, Dec. 15.

The agreement approved was a professional services agreement with BIT Computers. The company will design and implement a network infrastructure upgrade. This will allow different departments, including public works, wastewater, police and building/planning to share information easier between buildings. Due to the large files involved in may projects, Warsaw Mayor Joseph Thallemer explained that currently, someone has to take the file to a different building on a flashdrive. The upgrades will also include multiple server back-ups to ensure that no important files are lost.

The cost of this agreement is $198,748. The funds will be paid out from the different departments that will benefit from the upgrade.

“We’re really looking forward to it, our server is about full,” said Brian Davison, utility manager. “It’s going to be a huge benefit to our department.

City Planner Jeremy Skinner also emphasized the importance of the project. “Long-term this is beyond beneficial to our city. This is definitely where we need to go.”

In other news:

• The annual agreement with Turner Valentine LLP for city legal services was approved.
• Housing Authority was approved a transfer of funds to pay for their latest project.
• The annual diesel contract was approved for the locked-in 2018 rate.
• The parks department accepted the KREMC Operation Round-Up grant of $1,500 for the family carnival in August.
•  Three taxicab permits were approved, one for Larry Rock and two for David Casaretti.
• The police department was approved to use Superion Parking module as the new records management system for parking tickets.
• The fire department presented and was approved for the emergency reporting service agreement and the 2018 volunteer firefighter agreement. Both items were previously discussed at the fire territory board meeting.
• The Market Street project had three items approved including an engineering contract, right-of-way acquisitions and a railway agreement. The project is expected to begin construction in 2018.
• Budget guidelines for 2018 were approved for both wastewater and stormwater departments with no real changes from this year.
• The wastewater department was approved to purchase a Vactor Sewer Cleaning Machine for $311,089. The current machine is 10 years old.
• HR presented the 2018 American Fidelity Section 125 assurance and COBRA rates for city employees. They were both approved.
• A new maintenance agreement for the HVAC units was approved with CORE Mechanical Service, Etna Green.