At the October 13 Fillmore County Board Meeting 21, non-profit grant applications were approved. This portion of the county’s CARES Act funding totals $176,598. Like with the business grants approved at the last board meeting, non-profit grant applicants will be required to document losses or costs due to COVID-19. Both the business and non-profit grant applicants must submit this documentation before November 1.
Two additional business grant applications were approved this day. County Administrator Bobbie Hillery’s email was shut down for a period of time on September 1. These two applications were sent in during this time when her email was down. Both businesses proved they sent their applications during this time, so they do qualify. Therefore, an additional $13,000 will be added to the business grant total, which will now be $655,143.
Kyle Kohls, Christina Welke, and Jason Twaddle of Marco Inc. gave a presentation regarding a Managed IT upgrade for cybersecurity. The county currently has protection tools in place. However, they don’t prevent hackers from finding ways to breach the firewall. The additional layer of security being proposed will detect what you can’t stop and then shut it down, before widespread breach and ransomware. This is important to prevent a malicious attack. It was also stressed that it is important for users to know what to look for.
Twaddle also described additional email security that will be available down the road.
Hillery said this is another level of security. She noted that CARES funding could pay $12,166.25, which is the one time implementation fee. Commissioner Duane Bakke asked about the additional email security if it could qualify for CARES funding. It was decided to go ahead with the one time implementation fee for the email security option in the amount of $6,440 using CARES funding. A motion was approved to go ahead with both upgrades using the CARES funds under the technology piece.
The county currently is paying $13,568.90 as a monthly recurring fee. With the security upgrade the recurring fee will be raised to $14,820.17.
Welke explained that with more money spent on security, attacks will be discovered, and therefore, recovered from faster. She recommended that the county consider cyber security insurance. Hillery said MCIT does offer cyber security insurance that could be added to the policy. The county does not have this kind of insurance at this time.
Questions were raised about cyber security on employee phones used for work. Kohls said this would be another upgrade. He wanted to know the number of phones that are used for county business. Commissioner Mitch Lentz said the county at this time does not have a policy to manage security on our phones. Hillery agreed that the use of cell phones should be looked into.
Other business in brief
• Drew Hatzenbihler, Sanitation, requested and received approval of a hauler’s license for GFL Environmental Inc. Hatzenbihler reported that Winneshiek County did approve the termination agreement between them and Fillmore County effective July 1, 2020.
• A field access permit to county road 1 was approved for Menno and Sara Miller on their property located in section 4 Sumner Township.
• Two bids were submitted for leasing the county farm (45.79 tillable acres) in the 2021 and 2022 crop years. The high bid of $301 per acre submitted by Gavin Wangen was accepted.
• Approval was given for a 2021/2022 Community Support Program Grant contract between Fillmore County and the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Approval was given for a 2020/2021 Respite Care Addendum between Fillmore County and the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
• Final payment for 2020 Rock Contract to Bruening Rock Products was approved (CSAH 38 and 4 in Spring Valley and Sumner Townships). County engineer Ron Gregg reported that the recently purchased Road Groomer has already been used on 30 miles of road after the recent rain.
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