County: Commissioners approve software, IT server purchases

County Treasurer Bob Lothspeich Monday received approval from the county commissioners to purchase new computer software that will track investment funds made in his office.

In July, Lothspeich informed the commissioners that the software which tracks investments is no longer working. The software is not compatible with the current accounting system.

Lothspeich said when the mainframe died in January, the portfolio and statements for investments disappeared. He said there are 129 investments for a variety of local government entities the treasurer’s department must track.

When a taxing district has extra money, the district board can generally ask the treasurer’s office to invest the money for the district. The cost of the software was not budgeted by the department, although Lothspeich said he believes his department has enough money for the system.

The commissioners took no action on the request in July and asked Lothspeich to do more research about the software.

Lothspeich Monday told commissioners the system would cost $4,750 plus tax. He added Klickitat County has had the same system for three years.

The commissioners approved the request to get the new system as soon as possible.

Commissioners also approved the Information Technology department’s emergency purchase for a new data file storage server. The old server which contains all the county departments’ user files expired and a new server is necessary.

Cost for the new server will be a little more than $12,000, according to Chris Nelson, director of the county’s Information Technology department.