City of Baldwin Police Chief Jeff Branyon is recommending the city purchase a new public safety software that will cost the city a total of $19,400 annually.
The Baldwin Police Department has looked at several different systems to streamline their digital processes, which are currently split up between multiple different programs to process evidence, store data, run criminal history checks, submit information to courts and more.
The chief decided to bring InterOp Public Safety Software forward to the Baldwin City Council for consideration at their Tuesday night work session.
“The reason we are looking at InterOp, this is the one we’re proposing, [is because] five other agencies in the county are currently using Interops,” Branyon tells the council. “One of the biggest advantages for us is if we go with this system our officers will be able to pull [InterOp] up on their computer in the car and see where every other officer in the county is located; they can also see where our officers are located.”
Branyon says this feature would help not only the Baldwin Police Department, but other area law enforcement agencies, in the case that they needed backup. InterOp would also allow the Baldwin Police Department to share data with other local agencies.
“Right now, we don’t have an investigative division, so we can generate a report in InterOp here and I can send that to the investigative unit at the sheriff’s department to follow up for investigation,” Branyon says.
To start up InterOp, it would cost the city $3,080 and would bring in evidence documentation equipment and software, data mitigation from one of the city’s current programs to Interops, GPS locators for vehicles, software for vehicles and the police station, signature digitization and training.
After that initial cost, the police department would pay a $1,350 monthly subscription to the service.
InterOp also offers a service that would do away with two services the department uses to run criminal history checks, giving the department direct access to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s records. The police department is currently getting that information through an agreement with Courtware, which manages citations, and an encrypted data service that allows the department to run criminal history checks.
Branyon says that last year, the City of Baldwin Police Department spent around $25,000 to $30,000 on Courtware. He estimates the city pays $1,000 to $2,000 per year for the encryption service. This InterOp service would cost an additional $3,200 per year.
The city wouldn’t completely get rid of Courtware, which is still an important part of the city’s municipal court system. It would, however, remove Courtware from the police budget.
While this software isn’t in the city’s current budget, city officals believe the costs can be paid for upfront and any additional costs can temporarily be covered by public safety funds from tickets until the budget can be adjusted.
“We don’t want to charge the police department with increasing the number of tickets that you write to manage our software,” Councilwoman Stephanie Almagno said. “I mean, that’s not the city that we are.”
The council seems to be interested in moving forward with bringing the software to the city after the recommendations of the police chief and city clerk.
“My recommendation is for us to move forward with the software,” City Clerk Emily Woodmaster told the council. “It’s needed, it’s necessary, I’m confident that we can add it into our budget.”
The council plans to vote on the InterOp software at their meeting Monday night.
