Washington County Sheriff’s Office hires new IT staff

The Washington County Board of Supervisors approved a hire for a new information technology position for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office Tuesday.

While the office has had its own IT technician since around 2000, Sheriff Jared Schneider said the technician would cover technology issues for the county jail, Sheriff’s Office, communications and emergency management.

“Because we know that our current person is getting close to retirement, we asked the Board of Supervisors to let us hire somebody early, so we can get them familiar with our IT environment,” Schneider said. “Plus, we have some big projects coming up on infrastructure we need to replace beyond what we did with the communication center, so having an extra person to help us through some of those bigger projects was another motivating factor.”

Schneider said the department’s technology use necessitated a fully capable IT technician at all times.

“The days of writing a ticket with a tablet and pen have been over for probably 10 years,” he said. “Most of their job anymore relies on the computer that’s in their car and keeping that connected to our system back at the office.”

While the demands of the job will resemble technology demands in the private sector, Schneider said there would be some differences.

“We’re probably a lot like other businesses, but I would say that the security side of things (is) a little bit more elevated,” he said. “We take different measures than maybe a normal business would take. There’s protected information within our system. We know to do what we’ve got to do to make sure that that information is protected.”