NATCHEZ — The search to bring the City of Natchez’s computer systems into the 21st century is on.

A committee to address the city’s IT needs — which were in the past described by members as “woefully needful” — has been meeting for several months, and in August the committee presented city aldermen with three areas of fundamental need.

The first need was for a full-time IT director, and the second need would be for the director to assess the systems in the various city departments to determine what needs upgrading or discarding.

The third need, the committee said, was for a professional city website.

The committee is now conducting a search for an IT director.

“The position has been advertised publicly, and we are reviewing all the applications that have come through,” committee member Allen Richard said. “We have viable candidates we will be speaking to after the first of the year.”

The system currently in place is chaotic, with departments working largely independently of each other, buying hardware and software as it is needed, meaning that there is no uniform system in place for the city.

That makes networking very difficult, Mayor Jake Middleton said.

“If I want to get on a computer, I want to be able to log in wherever I am and look, if I am in (the) planning or public works (departments) or wherever,” Middleton said. “Right now I can’t do that.”

Currently, an employee in the city clerk’s office, Gary Valentine, is handling the city’s IT needs.

“Gary has been doing all this in addition to the things (he) is responsible for in the city clerk’s office,” Middleton said. “It’s too much.”

Having an IT director means that the system — or systems — currently in the city offices will have to be integrated into a wider IT network or be replaced, the mayor said.

“This is going to be a new, from-the-ground-up, build-your-own system,” he said.

The aldermen have in the past discussed the possibility that having an IT director will save the city money rather than having to have contractual labor perform needed repairs.