County to spend big bucks upgrading courthouse computers

The Roosevelt County Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved to spend $200,000 to upgrade computer hardware and software at the Roosevelt County Courthouse. The upgrade will allow employees to work faster with a more secure, less complicated network of technology. The current hardware and software provider, TRIDAC will be replaced by a combination of Eagle and Incode.

The benefits to the change will be substantial, according to employees who work with the out-of-date TRIDAC computer systems and the people in other counties who have the Eagle and Incode computer systems.

“I’ve talked to other counties that use the Eagle computer system and they talked about how good the system is,” Roosevelt County Clerk Joyce Fraze said.

Back then the system had no graphics and no mouse. If there was ever any problem with the system, the response from TRIDAC’s technical support team could take up to a week, according to T. J. Stevens, computer specialist for Roosevelt County.

“It was hard to get a resolution on the problems and the system would crash,” Stevens said.

The cost of the original TRIDAC hardware and software was cheaper, and therefore the reason the county decided to go with it the first time. The cost of the system was around $110,000, Stevens said.

The county will need to pull money out of the budget reserve to pay for the upgrade. Commissioners briefly discussed that in the future they will need to pass a proposal for a budget adjustment. The commission set up the budget for the fiscal year in June, but at the time they were unsure of the cost of the new computer system. They decided to make the adjustment, once they found out the cost.

Also at the meeting:

l David Sanders, a former county commissioner, updated the county commission on the status of the Ute Water Project.

Mayor Orlando Ortega and Clovis Mayor David Lansford will continue to meet with U.S. Senator Pete Domenici and state legislators on the Ute Water Project. Ortega, Lansford and Tucumcari Mayor Calvin Litchfield met on Monday to answer questions from the state Water Trust Board in Santa Fe.

“It is important to retain our interest,” Sanders said, who has been working on the project for 10 years. “There is an escape clause with the project if the decision is made to exit the project.”

Ideas for the project have been circulating for over 40 years.

County commissioners Paul Grider and Gene Creighton volunteered to participate in any of the Ute Water Project meetings.

l Roosevelt County Detention Center Administrator Jesse Luera and County Administrator Charlene Hardin will attend a meeting in the Curry County Commissioners’ office at 1 p.m. on Thursday to discuss solutions for jail overcrowding in Roosevelt and Curry counties.