Computer Virus Erased Massive Amount of Planning Department Data

As much as a year-and-a-half’s worth of Planning Department data was lost as a result of a that struck the network servers in November and crippled government email accounts.

Officials said the most important files erased were the town’s development regulations and comprehensive plan, though hard copies are still available.

“It wasn’t critical data, but some data in the planning department was probably missed the most,” Town Administrator Chris Schlehr said. “We generally have paper copies of what was lost. … There’s probably some letters and things like that.”

Other departments were also minimally affected, Schlehr said.

When the virus in late November, Schlehr said it would be cleared within the next week. But .

, and on April 4, he with $43,000 in one-time costs to upgrade the town network. The of the budget April 18.

Included in the fiscal year 2012 computer expenses are $8,000 for a new town hall router, $15,000 to convert Unix-based systems to Microsoft and $20,000 to upgrade from Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems to Windows 7 and software upgrades to Office 2010.

“It’s just putting the computer budget over this [fiscal year 2012],” Schlehr said. “We shouldn’t have to incur that for the following year, so the following year budget should go back down.”

Schlehr budgeted $300,000 for town computers in the upcoming fiscal year, about $40,000 more than fiscal year 2011.

Senior Planner Bob Syphard, who served as from Dec. 31 through March 15, said the lost data is a matter of convenience.

“Things that have been put on a server to be redundantly backed up in case we ever need it—that’s the stuff that was lost,” he said. “A lot of that kind of information is accessible somewhere else, or we have a hard copy.”

Copies of the development regulations and comprehensive plan have been sent to General Code for electronic reproduction, Schlehr said.

Syphard said ongoing projects such as flood and forest conservation plans may have been erased by the virus that Schlehr called the worst in town history.

Information Technology Specialist Wendell Baxter agrees.

“It was a bad virus. It was something unexpected but it’s something that could happen and hopefully we’ve taken steps that it won’t happen again, but there’s no guarantee,” he said. “Anytime you make an upgrade you hope it’s going to improve the system.”

Baxter took a five-month leave from his position after a mid-November knee surgery and was not working while the virus was active. He .

“We’re going to find out as time goes by how much we actually did lose,” Syphard said. “If we need [a document] to be recreated, if it was critical, we’d have to do that with whatever data we have. It obviously wouldn’t be an exact copy.”