New public safety software to be purchased

As published in the Record Journal Thursday June 27, 2013

By Andrew Ragali
Record-Journal staff
aragali@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224
Twitter:@AndyRagz

WALLINGFORD - At the request of Police Chief Douglas Dortenzio, the town will spend nearly $600,000 for new public safety software. It will replace aging software that controls police, fire and medical dispatching as well as investigative and administrative functions, Dortenzio said.

The software will be purchased from New World Systems. The department has spent about $1 million on technology from that company over the past 15 years, Dortenzio said, and has been happy with its service. The technology works together and cannot be interfaced with software from other companies, Dortenzio said.

The Town Council approved a bid waiver Tuesday to allow the department to continue buy equipment from New World Systems. The item was added to the agenda Tuesday night by waiving a rule. Several councilors wondered why they were first being told about the bid waiver that night.

“It was an oversight that it didn’t appear on the agenda,” said Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. “They bid the hardware, but they didn’t want to bid the software because they wanted to stay with New World Systems.”

Network hardware was publicly bid last month, Dortenzio said, and the costs came to $180,431.

The bid waiver passed on a 6-3 vote, with Jason Zandri, Nick Economopoulos and Craig Fishbein dissenting.

Zandri said a newer product could bring bigger savings. Dortenzio said the software replacement is a piece of a larger system that would cost far more to replace than the $1 million invested over the last 15 years.

“You’d have to come up with four or five times the money I’m asking for tonight,” Dortenzio said to the council.

Dortenzio said he was approached by New World Systems two years ago and was asked to purchase new software. The department put off the purchase, he said, “because it makes more financial sense now.” “I don’t know that another vendor couldn’t meet our needs,” Zandri said. “There’s nothing else to compare it too.”

While Fishbein agreed that new software needed to be bought, he was upset that Dortenzio went about soliciting a draft contract with New World Systems without telling the council.

“I don’t think that’s the procedure that should be followed,” Fishbein said. “It was my understanding you come before the council first to get permission to engage.”

Dortenzio said he communicated with New World Systems for six months to develop contract language.

“When I’m hearing these things are going on, I don’t think that’s the process,” Fishbein said.

Economopoulos also weighed in, saying “I just find this not the right way of doing business.”

Dickinson supported Dortenzio’s request.

“I fully support the efforts of the department to upgrade and proceed forward in a logical and efficient way,” Dickinson said.

To his knowledge, the mayor said, the town has never put to bid software for any department. Software has always been purchased through bid waivers, he said.

“I understand the importance of this, and sometimes the importance has to be the overriding factor of what we do,” said Town Council Chairman Bob Parisi.

“It’s just too critical of a system to shop around right now,” Councilor John Sullivan said.

Town Councilors John Le-Tourneau, Tom Laffin and Vincent Cervoni also said Tuesday night that they were comfortable with the bid waiver and had faith in Dortenzio’s work.

When questioned by Sullivan Tuesday night, Dortenzio called the new software a “premier product.”

Fishbein said he doesn’t “see it as a premier product if only a handful of towns in the state use it.”

Dortenzio said Berlin, Newtown, Waterbury, East Hartford, and Cheshire have the same software. The product isn’t more widespread in the state, Dortenzio said, because not all departments provide the same level of service. A cheaper product could be purchased, he said, but it would provide only one-third of the current software’s capabilities. Since correctly dispatching emergency vehicles is important, Dortenzio said he’d rather spend more money for a better system.

The council approved transferring $120,425 left over from the regular wages account and $475,506 from the town’s surplus to the department for the new software. Zandri and Economopoulos voted against both items.

With the new system, maintenance costs will decrease, Dortenzio said. Annually, the department will pay $119,212 in maintenance under a new contract with the company, $18,000 less than the current contract, he said.