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 The IS Department was founded around 1962 by then Auditor/Treasurer Wayne Simson, with Voter Registration, Property Taxes, Payroll and Accounts Payable as our first application. For the first few years we were officially called the Tabulating Department, but most employees just referred to us as the IBM Department not really knowing what to call a department with computer equipment. The IS Department was started in the basement of the Court House with 5 employees and now has 10 employees.
Some highlights of the past 50 years include:
- Changing from “batch” to “interactive” data processing. Originally data was keyed to punch cards (then directly to disk) only to be “Read” by a computer in a separate process before the data was available to be used. Now most data is entered online and is available immediately.
- Computer equipment (PC’s, Terminals and Printers) residing only in the IS Department moving to the employee’s desktop. No longer does everything have to be taken or picked up in the IS Department. Now employees have a greater computing power on their desktops then the whole County did 30 years ago.
- Communications reaching outside of Rowan County Government. For many years employees were lucky if they could communicate (send messages, etc) even to other employees. Now most employees can use email, web access, etc to communicate and work with others anywhere in the world.
The number and type of equipment we use is increasing and changing everyday. This requires staff to be ready for “anything” and equipment to have a shorter lifespan. In addition, IS staff now has to constantly go to other departments to maintain equipment. Managing and maintaining this equipment takes a greater percentage of time and resources than writing new programs, and providing new equipment.
There will certainly be more automation and not less of it in the future. Exploring what new technologies to” invest in” and what to “skip” will continue to be a major challenge in the future. Selecting technology for the benefits it delivers instead of its “bells and whistles”, always needs to be a driving force when spending tax payers funds.
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