IT Department of St. Joseph County asks for new hires, despite slim 2026 budget

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The St. Joseph County Commissioners held their first discussion for 2026 budget proposals.

Dan Schaetzle, a county council member, said in his newsletter that department representatives should expect hiring freezes, flat budgets, and no pay increases excluding those under existing union contracts.

These restrictions do not change the issue of some departments needing new hires and an increased budget.

The Information Technology Department falls in line with these needs as they try to be more proactive rather than reactive in regard to cyber security attacks.

Richard Warfield, the I.T. Director, said that this department takes care of the behind the scenes work within the community, and can be difficult to explain to those who are not in the profession.

“We don’t have the bandwidth to answer tickets and do the tech refresh,” said Warfield. “We have to pull someone off of tickets to help with the tech refresh, and that’s kind of killing us right there.”

Commissioners said they would need to see evidence such as the number of tickets I.T. answers per day to prove that more workers would result in improved work.

This is just the first of many budget proposal discussions, with three more this month. Each meeting will be held in the seventh-floor conference room of the County-City Building in South Bend.

The next proposal discussions will occur:

• July 16, at 5 p.m.
• July 28, at 5 p.m.
• July 29, at 5 p.m.

There will also be a meeting streamed live on Zoom. The meeting ID is 814 1846 7261, the passcode is 196055, and the dial-in number is 312-626-6799.