The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) approved an $850,000 budget amendment for the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) to replace mission-critical hardware to ensure operations continue in the event of a power failure. The funds are currently available in Reserves of $33,444,059.
An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) failed recently at the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), causing disruption in the Communications Center operations. The exact cause of the failure was not reported for security reasons, but Sheriff Al Nienhuis did state that the problem did not originate from an external attack.
A UPS is a device that uses batteries to power essential equipment during a power outage. Consumer-grade products are available to keep home computers on long enough to allow for a graceful shutdown and avoid damage to the computer by suddenly losing power. Because these devices are essentially large batteries, they do need to be replaced periodically.
Commercial UPS systems are designed to keep large-scale systems functioning in the same way, and can be linked together to switch to another UPS in the event one UPS is depleted.
Nienhuis reported that the unit that failed at the Communications Center is approximately 20 years old, and the failover to the backup Communications Center also failed. As a result, both centers were unable to receive 911 calls and those calls were routed to Pasco County. “Fortunately, this was in the middle of the night, so things weren’t overwhelming, we were able to get through it in a few hours.“
Nienhuis requested the $850,000 budget amendment to purchase two new UPS units and associated equipment to power the Communications Center and a secondary Communications Center used for backup. A portion of the funds will be used to ensure that the backup Communications Center is truly independent of the main center. Other improvements include enhancements to network monitoring and logging systems to guard against malware and cyber-attacks.
HCSO’s IT Director Matt Balogh explained the immediate need is to replace the UPS equipment, which will require an estimated 10-12 weeks to receive the hardware. Balogh reported one response to a bid for equipment so far, coming in at $175,000. He estimated the security enhancements would be about $100,000.
The equipment requires annual maintenance agreements, which Balogh estimated to be $20,000 – $25,000.
Installation of the UPS and supporting hardware will take about 12 hours of downtime to the Communications Centers, with careful coordination to ensure 911 services remain available.
The County’s new Fiscal Year (FY) begins on October 1, 2024, and any surplus funds from HCSO will be carried over to replenish reserves. Commissioners discussed addressing budget line items at an upcoming budget meeting on September 12 to keep reserves adequate for unplanned incidents such as this one.
