ADP Follows Up on New World Software Enhancements
ADP Board Annual Organizational and Special Meeting - January 13, 2025
Meeting Details: The Automatic Data Processing Board (ADP) held its annual organizational meeting at 2:00 pm on January 13, 2025 in the Geauga County Auditor’s Office Appraisal Conference Room at 231 Main St. Chardon, OH 44024, followed immediately by a special meeting. Virtual access was available via MS Teams, and the agenda was provided in advance. This observer attended via MS Teams.
Public Comment: ADP does not have a written public comment policy. In practice, public comment is solicited at the end of the meeting.
Board Attendance:
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Auditor/Chief Administrator – Charles Walder
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Clerk of Courts – Sheila Bevington
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County Commissioner – Carolyn Brakey
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Engineer – Andy Haupt
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Board of Elections – Michelle Lane and Nora McGinnis
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County Prosecutor – Jim Flaiz
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Recorder – Celesta Mullins
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Sheriff – Chief Tom Rowan for Scott Hildenbrand
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Treasurer – Caroline Mansfield for Chris Hitchcock
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Coroner – John Urbancic (absent)
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Common Pleas Court Judge (absent)
ADP Staff Attendance:
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Frank Antenucci – Chief Deputy Administrator
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Allen Keener - Chief Technology Officer ADP
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Jeff Vaji - Archives and Records Clerk
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Tracy Rahimi - Help Desk Clerk (virtual)
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Zach McLeod - Information Security Manager
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Joshua Holtz - Information Technology Technician
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Rob Bushman
Other Government Representatives:
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Katie Taylor - Engineering
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Traci Salkiewicz - Engineering
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Kate Jacob - Chief Compliance Officer, Auditor’s Office (virtual)
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Dave Carlson - Assistant Superintendent, Geauga Board of Developmental Disabilities
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Velta Muisio - Court of Common Pleas IT Director (virtual)
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Ron Leyde – Chief Deputy Auditor
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Pam McMahan – Chief Operations Officer, Auditor’s Office
Others Present:
The annual organizational meeting was called to order at 2:00 pm by Mr. Antenucci. The Board unanimously approved March 4, June 10, September 9 and December 9 for 2025 regular meeting dates. A list of Board alternates was prepared and approved. Mr. Antenucci asked for public comment and there was none. The meeting was adjourned at 2:02 pm. The special meeting was immediately called to order by Frank Antenucci at 2:02 pm.
Minutes: None were presented for approval.
The Board took the following actions:
APPOINTED - Ms. Jacob, acting as the representative for the Geauga County Auditor’s Office and Chair of the Transition Supervisory Board for the dissolution of the Village of Aquilla, explained that Ohio statute requires interaction with the records commission to review documents pertaining to the Village of Aquilla. She requested a representative from the Department of Archives and Records to assist the Receiver Trustee in this review. The Board unanimously appointed Karen Murphy as the representative from Archives and Records.
WELCOMED - The Board welcomed new ADP Board members, Carolyn Brakey representing the County Commissioners and Andy Haupt, the new Geauga County Engineer.
APPROVED - Sheriff’s Motorola Solutions Radio Traffic Recording ($142,402) - Mr. Antenucci explained that this new hardware and software is a replacement for a current system that is used to record all radio traffic in the Sheriff’s department. The department is currently using a device and system provided by Lake County, made available when they updated their system. The system is at end-of-life and no longer supported. The new system will operate as in-house computer software with data storage being cloud-based. Once the system is ordered, installation is estimated to be complete in 6 months’ time. The cost includes one-time hardware costs of $132,402 and an annual licensing cost of $8,000 for maintenance and support.
DISCUSSED - Microsoft Licensing - Mr. Antenucci informed the Board of a “massive” transition from the current Microsoft licensing structure. Upon conducting a license review, ADP determined that its Microsoft licensing is currently out of compliance. Usage was originally planned to be limited to email, but access to some functionality available via the Microsoft portal is currently used but not paid for. An example is 2-factor authentication. Mr. Antenucci referenced the municipalities of Cleveland and Columbus where networks were down for weeks as a result of ransomware attacks. The addition of the Microsoft product Autopilot during this licensing renewal process will allow for much enhanced disaster recovery response time in the event of a ransomware attack by allowing for remote imaging of affected computers in most instances. He estimated the increase to licensing cost to be ~40% and stated that the increase would be borne by the departments where the computers are utilized. The renewal is due in February 2025. No action was requested at this time.
DISCUSSED - Update on New World Cloud-Based Transition - Mr. Antenucci reviewed key actions taken in 2024 related to the New World ERP (enterprise resource planning) system utilized by the county. He noted that the transition by users to single sign-on domain credentials in Microsoft 365 was successfully done in Q3 2024 resulting in a more convenient process for users and a more secure environment. In Q4 2024, ADP set up TID Gateway to provide secure access outside of New World. This was a precursor to the transition of the New World host environment to the cloud which will begin to occur gradually in Q1 2025.
DISCUSSED - Move to “Checkless” Payments - Mr. Walder provided background to ADP’s efforts to reduce the number of check payments made by the county. Currently, about 28,000 physical checks are paid to vendors and to employees as expense reimbursements annually. Checks have become very susceptible to fraud with formats, signatures and banking numbers easily copied, and the County Treasurer is seeing regular attempts at fraud with county checks. ADP began an initiative to move to electronic payments facilitated by Tyler Technologies’ (provider of New World software) partner, CorpPay. Ms. McMahan reported that the initial requests to vendors to opt in to this payment process was well received. The next step will be to ask employees to also move to electronic payment. The actual initiation of electronic payments will not occur until the transition to the New World cloud-based environment is complete.
Observer Note: See the LWVG Observer Report from the September 10, 2024 ADP Meeting where enhancements of the New World ERP system and expected efficiencies were discussed.
Executive Session - A motion to adjourn to Executive Session for the purpose of considering “details relative to the security arrangements and emergency response protocols for a public body or a public office, if disclosure of the matters discussed could reasonably be expected to jeopardize the security of the public body or public office pursuant to R.C. 121.22(G)(6)” was approved. The Board and ADP security team were included.
Following the Executive Session, a motion to allow ADP to perform a password reset for any users or domains not currently in compliance with ADP password requirements was approved.
Public Comment: Mr. Antenucci asked for any public comment/questions. Mr. Carlson stated that he was present at the meeting to discuss the Board of Developmental Disabilities request for onsite IT support that was tabled at the December 10, 2024 meeting, a meeting which Mr. Carlson did not attend since he had the wrong time for the meeting. With no preparatory materials for the discussion, the item was tabled until the next meeting.
There were no other public comments.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:10 pm.
The next meeting of the ADP Board is a Regular Meeting that is scheduled for March 4, 2025.
Minutes when posted are available here: Meeting Minutes | Geauga County Automatic Data Processing
Virtual Meeting Information: Contact Pamela McMahan at pmcmahan@gcauditor.com
Observer: Carol Benton
Editor & Reviewer: Sarah McGlone
Submitted: January 21, 2025
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