Departments

Information Technology Division

Donald W. Jacobs
Chief Information Officer

Vision 
Our vision is to enable each County department to better serve the public through the best and highest use of appropriate technology, using creative, progressive, and economical IT solutions with uncompromising quality, reliability and efficiency. 

Mission
To provide organizational and individual leadership in IT by researching, evaluating, planning, implementing, and supporting appropriate technologies, designed to assist our sister departments in accomplishing their visions and missions, and to apply technology and best practices that make the delivery of government services affordable, efficient, accessible, and responsive to the citizens of Bucks County.

Goals and Objectives

Goals

• Continue to refine IT best practices in the areas of project, issue, and change management, computer and network security, standards development, and service and support methods to ensure high quality, cost-effective IT system delivery, operations, and support.
• Modernize and perpetually update the County’s data and telecommunications infrastructure to provide the most reliable, responsive, highly available, secure, and scalable IT environment practical for County business functions.
• Leverage the data and telecommunications infrastructure to fine-tune the IT portion of the County’s business and operations continuity plans to provide for a timely return to normal functions in the event of a disaster, ultimately moving from disaster recovery to disaster survivability.
• Research and implement practical business applications for County departments which will enable them to share information, deliver quality services, improve the cost-effectiveness of their operations, and bring the information closer to the public than ever before.
• Proactively maintain and support existing production systems to minimize business workflow interruption as defined by our citizens and sister departments.

Objectives

• Continue to develop and implement IT best practices in the areas of Project, Issue and Change Management, IT project request process and standards.
• Complete and implement approved IT components of a Continuity of Operations Plan.
• Perpetually refine the data and telecommunications infrastructure and its related security, and assure appropriate network performance and capacity.
• Continually evaluate and, as appropriate, upgrade technical resources to protect against hardware and software obsolescence and assure all systems are properly supported.

Organizational Chart

The Information Technology Department (IT) is responsible for all computer-related technology, information systems and services, and data and telephone systems provided to county government departments, the courts and the public. The Chief Information Officer (CIO), Donald Jacobs, reports to the Finance and Administration Division Director, Brian Hessenthaler.

There is one Deputy CIO which reports directly to the CIO.  On a regular basis there are six (6) offices reporting to the CIO.  They are: the DCIO; the Telephone Operators (Switchboard); the Business Analyst/Project Management office; the Training Office; the IT Finance office; and Legacy Operations.

The DCIO is authorized and expected to act as the CIO in the CIO’s absence.  Additionally, the DCIO has day-to-day direction over: Help Desk; Desktop; Networking and Production Servers; Infrastructure and Enterprise, and; Applications Development.

The IT Finance office has day-to-day direction over IT Finance; Purchasing; and Asset Management
Legacy Operations includes all mainframe production areas.

A summary of the responsibilities of these sections follows.

Deputy CIO – Bill Waterbury

Infrastructure and Telecommunications
This group is responsible for the acquisition, development and support of all infrastructure and telecommunications services across the County of Bucks.  This encompasses all WAN, LAN and Voice Services and core data center infrastructure as well.

Client Services
IT develops and maintains both hardware and software systems for all Bucks County agencies including the Court of Common Pleas. This is done through the IT Client Services group which includes: Help Desk; Desktop, and; Networking and Production Servers. The technologies in use and supported, range from stand-alone PCs used for word processing and spreadsheet applications, to large server-based enterprise systems shared by numerous or even all departments and divisions, and containing terabytes of data. All agencies and departments are linked to share data, use a single county-wide email system and an on-line payroll system.

The rapid pace of technological change within the computer industry has created a challenge for IT organizations everywhere. Bucks County IT is constantly investigating and applying new technologies (as appropriate) to meet the business needs of the departments and people we serve, while being cognizant of our budgetary responsibilities. Through strict adherence to standards in both software development and hardware areas, IT continues to support an ever-growing user base with no increase in staff. Tim Smith is the Client Services is Manager.

Application Development
The Applications Development section is responsible for the acquisition, implementation and support of all county computer applications systems and databases, as well as the current office productivity suite (MS Office) as sourced from commercial and governmental software packages and internally-developed systems.

Training – Randy Miller

The Training Coordinator works hand-in-hand with the Department of Human Resources and provides new employees with group training on the first day of their county orientation. The trainer also provides each new employee with individual, desk-side training once a week for one month after initial orientation. Equally important, the Training Coordinator reviews all IT service call statistics to create specific training programs for county departments. This helps the county’s staff remain as current and proficient as possible. It also reduces the number of help and service calls they need to make. In addition, the Training Coordinator is the Executive Trainer providing one-on-one training to any and all of the county’s VIP staff. Randy Miller is the training coordinator.

IT Finance Office – Sue Conrad

The IT Finance office, headed by the Financial Manager Sue Conrad, is responsible for IT’s budget and payroll, hardware and software lifecycle, vendor contracts, the development of statistical measures of financial and managerial performance and data center operations.

Data Center Production – Bob Strassler

Within the Data Center Production there is the Legacy Operations and the mainframe or Computer Operations groups, headed by Bob Strassler.

Legacy Operations keeps all the legacy services running smoothly behind the scenes and also provides the general public with certain reports and data. The information provided in these reports is expressly regarded as non-confidential material. Reports are supplied at a fee to the requestor / recipient and thus generate revenue for the county. This helps IT keep taxpayer costs to a minimum.

The Computer Operations group keeps all the data center systems running well. They are responsible for successfully and continuously operation of the 24 by 7 functions of more than thirty (30) legacy applications with their supporting databases and files.

Business Analysts and Project Management – Bill Franks

The Business Analyst / Project Management (BA/PM) group, headed by the B.A. Coordinator, Bill Franks is responsible for the overall planning, delivery and quality of IT services provided to their respective client communities. The B.A. Coordinator oversees the daily activities of the other B.A.’s and Project Managers.

Information Technology Department
Donald W. Jacobs
Chief Information Officer
Administration Building - 7th Floor
55 E. Court Street
Doylestown, PA 18901
Email: CIO@co.bucks.pa.us