When I approached the Geneva County Commission on October 28, 2024 about reducing the County’s IT costs, one explanation given was that the County was already in the middle of a virtualization project.

But invoices obtained through public records raise questions about that timeline.

A Foxhill Information Systems invoice dated June 15, 2024 already included an additional $1,000 charge for “Geneva County Virtual Infrastructure Servers.” That increased Foxhill’s monthly bill from $6,500 to $7,500.

The charge continued.

In July 2024, another $1,000 was billed for “Server Infrastructure MGMT,” with the invoice identifying “GC Virtual Servers.”

By August 2024, the description had changed to “Virtualization Host, Servers, AD managment” — again for $1,000.

So by the October 28 meeting, Geneva County had already been receiving virtualization-related bills for months.

Even more importantly, the $1,000 charge did not disappear when the “project” was completed. Records show it became a recurring monthly expense — $12,000 per year — for virtualization hosting, servers and Active Directory management.

If Geneva County was still “in the middle of a virtualization project” on October 28, why had taxpayers already been paying for virtualization services since at least June — more than four months earlier, or $4,000 earlier we should say?

Was Geneva County paying $1,000 per month for a project that was still incomplete?

If the system was already operational and providing services during those months, the records should show that. If it wasn’t, taxpayers deserve to know exactly what the County was paying for while the project remained in progress.

The invoices show when the billing started. What remains unclear is when the virtualization system actually became operational and what Geneva County received for those monthly payments, we have requested that information in a new records request to come soon.