Sealy City Council is battling the aftermath of Bitcoin Mining Software that resulted in the city being hacked. Sealy City Fire Marshal/IT Joey Schmidt spoke to the council during the June 9 workshop at the W. E. Hill Community Center and said the incident happened on several occasions last month.

“It did affect our email server plus four other workstations. The first time it affected the email server. The second time it happened affected the email server and four workstations. I got a phone call this morning that it affected six other computers including a few that were (involved) before,” Schmidt said. “It did not affect the exchanger server.”

Schmidt presented alternative email server options to the council to avoid the issue again or update the existing system.

“There are pros and cons with both. That is why I have not really done anything with the cloud so far. If you go with the cloud, there are security issues. If you stay with (the existing email server), there are issues, updating issues. There are issues with both,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt spoke to the council regarding various IT issues within the city, including software that could have prevented the Bitcoin hack.

Councilmember Edward Zapalac asked Schmidt if the state gives any guidance on preventative measures for hacked cities.

“Yes, there is guidance out there. Our insurance has guidance. I do not know what it says. I have not looked at it yet. A lot of that guidance comes from the federal government.” Schmidt said.

Since the last Wednesday’s meeting was only a workshop, no action could be taken on agenda items. The next chance for items to be approved came at June 15’s regular meeting, stay tuned for full coverage of that meeting.

Heart of the budget

Interim City Manager Warren Escovy said the point of holding a workshop meeting was to bring the new council members up to speed regarding the budget.

“We are going to use your base budget idea that everything has to be justified. Not doing that to make it harder for the council or for the staff but really so we do not have to do budget amendments like we did this year. This year was a very tough year as far as finances,” Escovy said.

City staff spoke to the council regarding 2018 Certificates of Obligation, public works priorities and drainage projects.

“When we talk about water and sewer, that is something that is very, very important. I commend you guys and this utility service survey. This is a must,” Councilmember Yvonne Johnson said. “With all these new people coming in, we have to prepare our city for it. Thank you for getting this together. We are going to find that money somewhere don’t you worry. We are going to keep the sewage running.”

Director of Streets, Parks & Recreation and Drainage Lawrence Siska spoke of projects such as the Cryan Park Project and B&PW Pond Project being on his priority list.

“We are trying to keep it short and sweet. (I) felt like we could save some money for the general fund,” Siska said.