Commission debates free vs. paid notification service

By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com

MOUND CITY – A discussion between Linn County Commissioner Alison Hamilton and Information Technology Director (IT) Chris Martin on Monday, June 30, turned into a question of which notification system could do more for Linn County, CivicReady, one that the county subscribed to over two years ago for about $4,200 year, or Everbridge, a free system that is provided to the Emergency Management Department by Homeland Security.

Hamilton had started the conversation because she wanted a method that the county could use to notify all employees about county announcements, emergency situations and other employee-targets information. 

The Linn County homepage has a link to the CivicReady notification system. (linncountyks.com)

First she discussed making sure that every employee had an email address. Martin explained that there was a cost to each employee having an email, and part of that cost included the training that the county’s present program KnowBe4 offered. 

For each email, the county cost would be $9 per month. 

Hamilton asked why the county was using KnowBe4. Martin said that last year the county had paid in advance for three years of service from the company. KnowBe4 is a cyber security company that offers various email security and training products. 

Martin said if he could get a list of employees from the County Clerk’s office, he could go through the list and then assign emails to people that did not have them.

Commission Chair Jim Johnson asked if the employees could be sent texts but that brought up the concern that every employee would need to have a cell phone. 

Hamilton suggested that having a cell phone be a requirement for all county employees. Discussion was held on requiring employees to sign up for the notification system.

Martin said that the current system could be modified to send emails and texts.

Linn County Fire Chief Randy Hegwald entered the conversation, reminding commissioners that the Everbridge system could be easily set up to notify county employees for free. He has explained the benefits of Everbridge to commissioners several times since his department began using it months ago.

The county's Emergency Managment webpage has a link to the Everbridge notification system. (linncountyks.com)

He said that with Everbridge employees could be set up by department so that if there was a notice for just one department it could go out to just those employees. Everbridge has the capability of notifying people by email, text or phone call.

Hegwald said that former County Clerk David Lamb used Everbridge for employee notifications. Lamb would call the emergency management department and the message would go to all the employees that were signed up on Everbridge.

Hegwald gave a brief explanation of what Everbridge could do. While presently, Everbridge is mostly used for weather notifications, it can be used for notifications to the public for a variety of circumstances. 

He told the commissioners that it could be used to notify just Pleasanton residents if a dog was lost in Pleasanton or there was a water boil order. He said that people living in other areas would not receive that notice until they drove into the Pleasanton area and then they would be notified on their phones. 

He said that while most people signed up on Everbridge just to use it for weather notifications, they can sign up for a variety of notifications on the system, whether it be public meetings, traffic issues, etc.

Johnson said it would be good to be able to just send notices to the people that are targeted by the notice.

Hegwald said that emergency management could set up the lists to be notified or department heads or even commissioners could set up which groups of people would receive specific notifications.

Johnson said that he would like to look further into using the Everbridge system.

Commissioner Jason Hightower summarized that IT, Souza and emergency management would work together to get employees set up to receive notifications. 

Later in the meeting, American Medical Response (AMR) operating manager Dawn Brooks told the commissioners that AMR uses Everbridge to send notifications to their employees. She said that AMR loves Everbridge.

During Linn County Economic Development Director Chasity Ware’s presentation, she reminded the commissioners that CivicReady was renewed every year and that if they did decide to cancel its subscription a certain amount of notice was needed.