By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- Members of the village Board of Trustees approved a resolution Monday night appointing Twinstate Technologies as the information technology contractor for the village.

In a presentation to the board, Twinstate representative Andrea Dumas made note of the WannaCry data ransom scheme which was let loose on computer systems around the world last week.

Dumas said that many problems that pop up on people's systems are because they don't update and patch their operating systems regularly. Experts have been saying that regularly updating systems might have prevented infection by the WannaCry code.

There were no such problems in Potsdam's system, but Village Administrator Gregory Thompson said he and others in the village offices were disappointed with the last contractor.

"We got a new server last year and we were told we should be 'flying high'" with few problems, but instead they were having to call the contractor three or four times a week for help.

There appeared to be a consensus among trustees and village officers in the board room that the last contractor did not perform satisfactorily.

Dumas proposed performing a "network discovery" which will compile an inventory of software and tasks regularly used along with other data that will give them a snapshot of the village's system from which they can begin preparing a plan to update and otherwise improve functions. The procedure would take about half an hour and cost $349, "and it will take about week to analyze" before they start working on a upgrade and maintenance plan, Dumas said.

Thompson recommended to trustees that they work with Twinstate. Mayor Ron Tischler and trustees Warr, Hopke and Sheehan voted for a resolution to do just that.