IT services for Pearl River County’s two municipalities are provided by a variety of companies, most of which are for software and hardware support.

Poplarville

The city of Poplarville uses I-tech systems group incorporated for IT support on a daily basis for any IT support other than accounting software, said City Clerk Jane O’Neal. The IT support is $550 per month, which is a total of $6,600 annually. The service I-tech provides is exceptional, O’Neal said.

For accounting software, Poplarville contracts with BBI incorporated, and pays $5,630 for hardware support annually and $10,240 for software support annually, O’Neal said. The accounting system software was purchased for $1,477 in 2016 and will be paid off at the end of the year, O’Neal said.

In 2016, the city revamped its software and hardware because it was obsolete, O’Neal said.

The city has an integrated software system with real time posting, which removes the potential for error and makes financial records more accurate, O’Neal said.

BBI incorporated backs up all of the accounting data and the city has an in house server that backs up financial information and other files, O’Neal said.

The city has not encountered any problems with the software, and does not anticipate having to replace it in the near future, O’Neal said.

Across all departments, the city uses 12 PC stations and eight tablets, O’Neal said. The city’s annual IT service expenses, which includes IT support for hardware and software, are $22,470. The majority of that expense is the annual $15,870 for accounting software and hardware support.

Picayune

The city of Picayune spends the largest portion of IT expenses on the system used to collect fines for the Municipal Court. The city paid the software company Syscon $53,579 during the current fiscal year. However, that cost is recouped, said City Clerk Amber Hinton. The city pays to enter each traffic ticket into the system, but then collects that cost as part of the ticket’s fine. As long as the fine is collected, the cost is recouped, Hinton said.

AccuFund, Inc. provides the city’s accounting software, hosted service and a cloud backup for $19,866. The city has used AccuFund since 2008, Hinton said, and the cost of the accounting software has remained consistent. Similar to Poplarville, accounting software is one of the city’s largest IT expenses.

Along with the cloud backup, the city has a server that stores copies of all files, and all city data is backed up in at least two offsite locations, Hinton said.

Mountaineer Computer Systems provided software support in the last fiscal year for various issues in the city for $8,603. The cost for their services has also remained consistent since 2008, Hinton said.

The city paid Datastar Inc. $7,270 for IT repairs and maintenance in various departments in the 2018 to 2019 fiscal year, and about the same amount for similar service the previous year, Hinton said.

Police software support is provided by PTS Solutions, Inc. at a cost of $6,350 this year. The city has used the same software for at least 10 years and the cost for the software has remained consistent, Hinton said.

The smallest expense is $4,390 paid to Vedecomp, Inc. to purchase security cameras for City Hall. Other buildings have security cameras, but City Hall’s needed to be upgraded this year, Hinton said.

Hinton said she expects costs to remain consistent.