By Matt Mackinder
Clarkston News Editor

Independence Township is going to upgrade its electronic infrastructure – at a cost of nearly $90,000.
At the Sept. 20 regular meeting of the Independence Township Board of Trustees, the township’s chief information officer, Aaron Jones, said that firewalls, two-factor authentication and email security features need to be upgraded, and the package he is proposing runs $89,867.
“During my assessments since I’ve been here, we’ve been going through all the township’s systems, including the fire stations, DPW, and town hall,” Jones said. “My findings have found that our firewalls are outdated or will be in the next few months. What I’m proposing is to replace all the firewalls globally, designing the ultimate system where if one leg goes out, the operations can still continue.”
Two-factor authentication is an “industry standard,” according to Jones, and means that when users enter the system, there is no question on who they say they are.
“It’s similar to your bank sending you a text message to validate your identity,” Jones said. “With email security and the rapid increase of threats, the protections we procure presently are falling short. This will enhance our email security and archiving, which will be a benefit to our FOIA processing down the road, which will reduce the time to do FOIAs (Freedom of Information Act requests).”
“As an institution, we don’t want to get those threats,” added Township Trustee Jose Aliaga. “I was very concerned about it, but happy to see you (Jones) are being proactive and bringing that to the board.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Jones chimed in.
Jones added that the $89,867, which covers all costs for three years, was not budgeted, but he is working with the township’s budget and operations analyst Rick Yaeger to find a solution to re-appropriate the funds. The email security would be in Jones’ budget for the remaining two years.
In three years, Jones said the security features can be assessed again “until the hardware becomes end-of-life and not supported and we’ll have to look at changing options again.”
The motion to approve passed unanimously.