JONESBORO, Ark. – Mayor Harold Perrin has called a special meeting of the City Council for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 27, to address a decade-old Information Technologies error that could have cost the City significant penalties had it not been for recent internal audits.
IT Director Jason Ratliff has identified numerous efficiencies that have enhanced operations and saved money in all City of Jonesboro departments. But a recent finding led to a determination that the City in 2008 purchased an insufficient number of licenses for Microsoft software.
Ratliff worked with a third-party software management engagement company, Angle Point, and received a report on May 31 that showed a previous IT director had failed to purchase sufficient licenses for the number of city computers.
He engaged in a conference call with Microsoft and Angle Point on June 8 to determine how to address the error, and the Microsoft employee advised that he was awaiting direction from company executives.
Meanwhile, Ratliff worked to review City servers and workstations to confirm the installations and the accuracy of the Microsoft report. On June 13, Ratliff received an amendment to the city’s contract from Microsoft stating that the city needs to upgrade all 2016 MS Office Standard licenses to MS Professional licenses in order to compensate for unpurchased licenses from 2008.
Microsoft agreed to apply the money spent on last year’s upgrades to that price, leaving a balance of $127,686.
The payment will have to be approved by council. In order to receive this credit, the City is required to approve this settlement before the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year, which is June 30.
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