ORDER-2022-134 : An Appropriation from Free Cash, account 01-324001, in the amount of $270,000 (Two Hundred Seventy Thousand Dollars) to various IT accounts as set forth herein.

Transcript (~12 min @ 52:06)

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▶ 52:03 Jen Grigoraitis: President Sonoma. Yes and chair Grannis. Yes. That's seven. Yes seven. Yes, so that will be recommended to the full Council for passage up. Next we have order 2022-134 and appropriation from free cash account zero one dash 324001 in the amount of 200.

▶ 52:25 Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm a little son of Melrose and I'm looking for a meeting that was supposed to occur up at the Cassidy

▶ 52:33 Jen Grigoraitis: If you can I could you give could you assist Mr. Clerk sir? Thank you, because just because we're in the middle of a public meeting, but the clerk can assist you. Sorry to various it accounts set forth here in so we now have IT director Ellis also joining us at the table. And please feel free to share what you need. That's what

▶ 52:52 Speaker 5: they have. That's right. Okay.

▶ 52:56 Speaker 7: yes, so good evening counselors. Thank you for hearing. This is a consideration for $200,000 for Zar annual. Upgrade amount that we use to replace computer servers whatnot throughout the school district and the city then there's an amount of 500,000 sorry $50,000 which companies a 50,000 that representative libertarian. Was able to obtain at the state level for the middle school camera upgrade which we estimated at around $100,000. Additionally is the $20,000 which is a social media archiving. We're trying to step up our game. With our with respect to foyer requests and our ability to Archive for legal purposes all of our social media accounts in the city and the schools so they are. Searchable and retrievable and able to be put together in a in a case by the legal department. So and included in that also is we also took on Microsoft 365 which includes teams chat. So there's a chat portion to that which forces a communication between employees which we do need to Archive like we do the email so that's encompassed in that $20,000 as well. That's a three year for three year.

▶ 54:34 Speaker 1: Are there questions from?

▶ 54:38 Jen Grigoraitis: My colleagues or I have a few questions. Yeah, just

▶ 54:40 Mark Garipay: thank you for being here.

▶ 54:44 Speaker 3: A couple of these look familiar with they part of the CIP.

▶ 54:47 Mark Garipay: Yes, what can you just all three

▶ 54:51 Speaker 7: of them were part of the CIP the we're all three. I don't think the 20,000 social media archiving was part of that because it came a little bit after we did the CIP and we were really starting to talk and look at M365 and figure out what we needed in it looked at first like our Barracuda backup product was going to take care of that and then it turns out it did not so that was not part of this the security cameras and our general Hardware replacement which projected out over the next five years is between 900,000 and a million dollars a year. So

▶ 55:29 Speaker 1: And thank you Council carm-chatie.

▶ 55:32 Manjula Karamcheti: Thank you so much for being here. I just have a couple of questions about social media archiving and I guess I'm just wondering As you move into doing that better and better and better? Like how are you paying attention to students confidentiality and redacting? It's sort of in that space when it comes to making sure that students identity is is not released.

▶ 55:59 Speaker 7: sure, so so the schools have their school committee policies that basically Point out in their in their handbook that point out what is allowed and isn't allowed in terms of a student students impersonal pii. What we which I something that I started here when I came almost six years ago now was to take on the To join what was the Massachusetts State student? Privacy Alliance, which is now become a National Organization and basically They write a standard template form for online software. And we issue those to vendors to you know, they have to when they sign off on the agreement they have to have to do a lot of the things that like what you're the protecting student data if there's a breach they let us know right away. How often they Purge their backups. There's a lot of language in there technical things that That if they didn't do it would allow for breach of student information. So we do that as well. And we we've since signed on with a contract with a detect Co-op who has an on has their own lawyer attorney who issues those for us now, so we pay a small fee and they issue those to you know, we have we're up to probably 180 online software packages that we we're protected now through the through those those agreements.

▶ 57:43 Speaker 7: I know that answers to the part of those the social media archiving though. That's yeah, go ahead.

▶ 57:50 Manjula Karamcheti: Probably I should do some more research and to understand sort of what that is in more detail. I guess I'm just trying to understand like in terms of archiving any like Instagram like the MHS business department or like the athletic department. Are you archiving all of that stuff including like comments that students make from their accounts? And that kind of thing. Is that

▶ 58:15 Speaker 7: sort of what you're that is what that is anything that a student might post publicly's is already out there. So this is just be capturing things that could possibly be taken down. before our ability to investigate And it probably you know when it comes to a student those things are handled. You know as things are with students, but you know when it comes to our as directors of departments and in school administrative staff posting, we have a very high much higher standard for what you know.

▶ 58:56 Jen Grigoraitis: Yeah, thank you. Just I'm gonna just jump in with a few follow-up questions on that and these may be more for the city solicitor, but I think there's a it's a it's very unclear to me when we say accounts used by City staff and schools. What does that Encompass because for example, there is at city of Melrose, but there is also mayor Broder there is also Melrose police. There are also many high school teachers who have their own personal Twitter accounts. So I As we enter into this process, I would really hope that we have a clear understanding of what are the accounts that we're tracking that the folks who are managing those accounts are aware that that's being done. And I know this has come up in the context of other electronic communications with the city, but making sure that there's a clear disclaimer. Like if our I don't think it's while I understand that Instagram in some ways is public that's not totally true depending on how an account is set up. But I think there's a difference between I'm posting a common that can be seen by the folk by Instagram itself. And by those that follow that account versus I'm posting a comment that's going to be archived by a government entity. So I know that's Complex, but I think it's really something particularly when we're talking about minors who I think are probably some of our most Ardent users of ardent users of social media that were on top of that and also really explaining to the slightly more clueless parents like what that means because I do think it's a it's there's a lot of Engagement amongst our students occurring on social media. I know that's really more the purview of the school committee, but I just it does as a parent it does raise a little bit of a red flag for me. Yeah.

▶ 1:00:30 Speaker 7: I don't want me to answer. But yeah, it's it's these are primarily accounts that are City accounts, which don't engage in much much. like back and forth with the community with posts and whatnot, but they can so we're following the guidance of MMA in the state and we've written our our technical portions of the of the city employee handbook to match what's expected and what's what's recommended by the state. So we're a little bit behind the game in terms of getting social media archiving going all of our surrounding communities have this already it's it's a standard practice and Um, everything that's post is is basically kept by those Folks by the by the by Instagram by Facebook by Twitter. This is This is it would not be used really. hard to explain but it's it's more of the ability to Archive those Communications that the city people who are employees of the city or schools communicate out Rather than the reverse unless there's some kind of a you know. Online altercation that needs to be investigated for some reason.

▶ 1:02:08 Jen Grigoraitis: Got it. No, I understand that. It's I mean, obviously there's a legal obligation to make sure those are brothers and accessible records. I just think it's it's all a bit of a Brave New World for everyone over the age of 30 so sure. Thank you counselor Stewart. Thank you.

▶ 1:02:23 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Ellis for for being. On your Microsoft 365 give Azure trust solution. I

▶ 1:02:32 Speaker 7: integrated. We it's available. We don't have a zero trust. Policy enacted yet in 365. Are you going to

▶ 1:02:43 Speaker 7: hey, it's something I thought about it's it's a very difficult culture. to enact something of that sort. We've certainly ramped up our policies for security purposes within the city and the schools. It is something that I I want to do. And I think it'll be some time until we can but I think it's something that eventually we're going to have to do. I mean we have a zero trust. Sort of policy in general. I mean, we sort of follow the zero trust recommendations in general, but we don't have like a 2fa. And we aren't using like an authenticator which Microsoft has her own and it's pretty good for logins as of yet. Okay. All right.

▶ 1:03:35 Speaker 1: I strongly recommend it. Yeah, I know.

▶ 1:03:39 Speaker 7: Hey, I yes I I strongly recommend as well. Yes. It's I don't want people at my door with torches right now. Well, I'm trying to get them to use Microsoft 365 right now. So that's kind of you know,

▶ 1:03:53 Speaker 1: thank you counselves.

▶ 1:03:56 Jack Eccles: I'd like to make a motion to recommend Passage.

▶ 1:04:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Second so we have a motion to recommend for passage made by counselor Eccles seconded by President. Cinella any discussion Seeing none Mr. Clerk. Can you please call the wolf? Counselor Eckles. Yes counselor garpy. Yes counselor. Jamaladin. Yes. Counselor Stewart, yes. Counselor crimshady. Yes president sonella. Yes, Andrew garitis. Yeah, we have seven. Yes seven. Yes, so that will be recommended for passage to the full Council. Thank you Mr. Ellis. I know you're just on pause and we'll be back in a few orders and we will move on to order 2022-138 and appropriation from free cash account zero one dash 324001 in the amount of 76,400 to various General government accounts as set forth here in