Florida Digital Counties Winners: Charlotte County

Government Technology and the Center for Digital Government* recently shared the annual list of Digital Counties winners, which included seven Florida counties. Stay tuned to Industry Insider — Florida for the other counties coming in the next week.

Continuing this year’s list is Charlotte County, which took eighth place in the 150,000-249,999 population category.

Major data work in Charlotte County has streamlined workloads and marked what the county calls a “transformative milestone.” The 2023 completion of the Power BI Dashboards Program for the Community Development Department reduced manual processes by 35 percent, increased decision-making accuracy by 20 percent and resulted in a 15 percent reduction in operational costs. Resident engagement also improved thanks to the dashboard system, increasing transparency and trust.

Charlotte County has upgraded firewalls and VPN sites to meet National Institute of Standards and Technology standards, enhancing cybersecurity infrastructure. Advanced firewall technologies and encryption protocols were integrated to strengthen defenses against evolving cyber threats, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data transmissions while complying with industry standards.

Additionally, the county completed a comprehensive infrastructure upgrade by deploying hyperconverged systems and replacing the entire storage network array. This combined effort aimed to enhance server storage capabilities for key offices such as the Sheriff's Office, Tax Collector, Property Appraiser and Supervisor of Elections. The upgrade improved speed and reliability, while security measures like firewalls and two-factor authentication were implemented across internal devices.

*Government Technology and the Center for Digital Government are sister publications of Industry Insider — Florida, and their parent company is e.Republic.