Catoosa to purchase unified software for all emergency service agencies
Catoosa County officials have signed off on the purchase of new software that will allow all of the county’s emergency agencies to work in unison to better serve the community.
During the Board of Commissioner’s meeting on Sept. 17, Sheriff Gary Sisk presented the results and recommendations based on bids that were received, and explained how the new software would help all the county’s emergency agencies.
“For the 2019 SPLOST, we’ve put an item in there for a records management and a computer-aided dispatch software system for all emergency services in Catoosa County,” Sisk said. “A number of companies submitted proposals and we gave those to all the participating emergency services. All of the bids were graded on a grading scale and the top three were selected. Those top three were then provided a time to come in and we spent a day in here with each one of them showing us their software; what it can do, and how it can provide and serve the needs of Catoosa County.”
Sisk says the due diligence also included researching how the software is working for other organizations currently using it.
“We went and visited some of the agencies running those softwares, and we called their references and talked to them,” Sisk said. “All of our emergency services came back and decided that they would like to move forward with a company called Centralsquare Technologies.”
While Sisk didn’t have a final contract to present to commissioners just yet, he did give a figure of where the cost is expected to land for the project.
“For expenditure of this project, we’re looking not to exceed $1.2 million,” Sisk said. “It will serve all of the emergency services. We’re looking at it being mapping and automatic vehicle location including law enforcement and fire. The records management will be on the same platform, so we’ll be able to share data among all the emergency services – the fire department’s pre-plans or emergency plans for the school systems and stuff can be accessed by an officer out in the field.”
Sisk said his team has been negotiating with Centralsquare to work out the final numbers.
“We’re close – there are just some other minor things that we’ve been working out,” Sisk said. “This is for the licensing and purchasing of the software for all the mobile units.
There are some other ancillary charges with Ringgold Telephone Co. for connectivity, and some other stabilization software from connection to the car back in to the server, so there will be a few other minor charges.”
The purchase will cover the software for all emergency agencies including the Catoosa County Sheriff’s Department, Catoosa Fire, Ringgold Police, Fort Oglethorpe Police, Fort Oglethorpe Fire, and 911.
“We feel we can pay for everything – the first year license and maintenance will be taken care of in the contract; the second year licensing and maintenance can be provided for with the SPLOST dollars within that $1.2 million,” Sisk said. “Everything can be paid for and no emergency service agency will be out a penny for the software; all of them will be provided for at least until 2023. We’ve all agreed to enter into intergovernmental agreements after that moving forward.”
To paint a picture of how badly agencies could benefit from the new software, Sisk explained how his office has been running on the same programs for about 25 years.
“It’s on the same database that was running in ’94, so it’s antiquated,” Sisk explained. “My jail software database doesn’t talk to my records database and hasn’t for years. The CAD is also in dire need of an update; it hasn’t been updated – it’s the original CAD that we put in when we started 911. This is really going to take us into the future.
Sisk says the new mapping will allow GPS to track exactly where callers are when reporting emergencies, and where the nearest officers are to those calls to increase response times. He also added that the communication with the court system will be enhanced for ticketing purposes.
“We’ll be going to electronic tickets,” Sisk said. “Now, when an officer writes a ticket, I have a clerical person that’ll go in in the morning and spend an hour or so inputting those tickets into my software so we can track them. Then, it goes over to the court system and the court then inputs those also into their traffic court software.”
With the new system, Sisk says officers can pull someone over and swipe their driver’s license, which will automatically bring the person’s data up to facilitate a quicker, electronic tally of whatever the charges are.
“All he’s (the officer) got to do is type in the statute for the charge,” Sisk said. “A printed ticket will be printed out in the car and handed to them (the offender), but now it’s already in my system and we’ll be interfacing with the court system, so now a clerk won’t have to enter a ticket item; the ticket will be there in the system the same day the ticket is issued whereas now; it’s at least 48 to 72 hours before the court clerk gets a ticket in her hand.”
Commissioners unanimously approved purchasing the software by a 5-0 vote.
With a few details still to be ironed out, Sisk said the contract could be finalized and ratified by the board in early October.