Technology Upgrades Slated to Cost Macomb Twp. $320,000

A $326,176 purchase should replace what Supervisor Mark Grabow calls Macomb Township’s “struggling, archaic technology,” specifically the township’s telephone system, wireless networking and data storage.

Since the township actually , the board has been working with its IT Department and outside consultants to develop a permanent fix for Macomb’s aging electronic infrastructure.

The solution, a complete upgrade of all township technology by the Wyoming-based IT provider ISI, was approved by the full board Wednesday.

For approximately $326,176, ISI will bring the township’s network electronics and wireless networking, telephone system, and central servers and data storage up to 21st-century speed.

“Our overall cost and our design behind this was in order to bring the entire township under one program and it’s designed to actually reduce the overall cost of our telephone services in addition to being able to handle and upgrade our systems to where we need to be in today’s technology market,” Grabow said.

Macomb's AT&T bill is currently around $60,000 a year, Grabow said, while an inter-township phone system, as this upgrade proposes, should reduce that cost significantly.

Macomb Township engaged Plante & Moran to design the project’s requirements and review the nine bids proposed.

While ISI did not post the lowest bid, township trustees elected to pay the slightly higher price for the convenience of dealing with a single vendor.

“In the past… one of the problems we’ve always had is a vendor coming in saying, ‘It’s not our stuff, it’s there stuff (that’s causing the issue),’” said Clerk Michael Koehs. Selecting a single vendor “solves all that cross-blaming problem.”

The new systems should be in place by November.