Local governments face many challenges in using information technology effectively. Their expertise and focus isn’t technology, and their budgets are tightly constrained by residents’ willingness or unwillingness to pay taxes. It’s difficult for smaller municipalities to build an IT team with deep knowledge across hardware, software, networks, security, and new technology, and all levels of government have difficulty competing with industry for top technical talent.

Find a Partner to Pool Financial Resources

Municipals also lack the ability to scale and centralize services, which can reduce costs. In business, shared services eliminate the need for small, redundant teams that provide the same service to each department. Companies commonly have a single human resources department to handle all employee needs and a single data center to handle all technology needs. But every municipality typically functions independently. This allows them to meet the unique needs of their locality, but also means they remain siloed.

The Prescient Solutions shared services model of IT services delivery lets municipalities break out of their silos. Municipalities can partner with each other and pool their financial resources to access expertise with the benefit of a full-time contract. It’s important to note this doesn’t have to mean they share technical infrastructure, technical projects, or technical goals. It does mean they share the cost and benefits of dedicated resources who work part-time on site at each location.

Support for a Full Range of IT Services

The shared services model allows Prescient Solutions’ expert, certified engineers to bring their knowledge and skills to each of the partnering municipal locations. The range of services provided is customized to every location, and can include:

• managed services
• system monitoring with 24 x 7 x 365 response
• desktop support and onsite equipment maintenance
• single point of contact help desk
• backups and disaster recovery planning
• IT strategy development
• data governance
• project management, vendor management, RFP development

Related: Municipal IT Needs a Balance Between Security and Transparency

Prescient Solutions has been providing IT services to municipal governments for years and comes to each engagement with a standard playbook and account services manual designed to deliver best practices to municipals, but this isn’t cookbook service. While the partnered municipalities share the cost of the dedicated resources, they receive individualized services. The expert engineers assigned to the municipalities spend time at each site and address the specific needs of each community.

With 20 years of experience and nearly two-dozen municipal clients, Prescient Solutions has developed a depth of understanding of both technology and government operations. Whether delivering services to a single municipality or partnered municipalities, Prescient Solutions’ expertise across network infrastructure, servers, cloud computing, and end user support ensures even the smallest village office has access to the same knowledge that a big city or company would draw on.

By cost effectively delivering high quality services to their community, municipalities can use Prescient Solutions directly or via shared services to realize efficiencies, and improve the quality of life for their residents. Contact us to learn more about our services for municipal entities and how our shared services can help you make the most of your IT budget.