SALINE COUNTY 911 BOARD MINUTES January 12, 2023
The Saline County 911 Board met at the OEM Building on Thursday, January 12, 2023 at 9:00 a.m.
Board Members Present: Saline County Judge Matt Brumley Benton Mayor Tom Farmer Saline County OEM/911 Director Brandon Guillot Saline County Fire Service Coordinator Matthew Lutz Saline County Sheriff Rodney Wright Benton Fire Chief Russ Evans Benton Police Chief Scotty Hodges Pafford Ambulance Operations Manager Devin Holland Bryant Police Chief Carl Minden Bryant Fire Chief JP Jordan
Board Member Absent: Bryant Mayor Allen Scott
Others attending meeting: Communications Manager Staci Winberry, Assistant Communications Manager Deanne Owen, OEM Deputy Director Austen Walls
Communications Manager Staci Winberry presented the minutes to the board from last meeting. After a small change “rewording on the update policy” was made to the minutes, a motion was made to approve the minutes by Saline County Judge Matt Brumley and 2nd by Saline County Sheriff Rodney Wright. Minutes accepted.
Renovation Plans-The renovation of the 911 room is expected to be complete in March. The painting of the 911 room has just been finished. Floors have been raised and the electrical will be next. The week of March 13th Watsons is planning to be here that week to move the four consoles from the old Benton room into the new constructed area.
Personnel – Communications Manager Staci Winberry gave update on personnel. There are 4 full time positions open, we had 3 but someone that was in training had to leave due to family issues. We have received a lot of applications and 4 people are coming in next week to take the critical test. If these people work out, we will be fully staffed after completing training which will take several months.
A letter that was sent from CJ Engel Executive Director of the State 911 Board was discussed. Sheriff Rodney Wright suggested that Communications Manager Staci Winberry reach out to Director Engel and verify if the board needs to spend the money first and then get reimbursed or submit a plan. A motion was made by Saline County Judge Matt Brumley to submit a pre-approval letter to the State 911 board and request anything else they may need for Saline County to receive the funds. The funds would be spent exclusively on 911. The State 911 board has a meeting next Thursday and the Judge requested that the letter be sent by Wednesday so the State 911 board could have it for that meeting and it could be discussed. Saline County OEM/911 Director Brandon Guillot suggested that the board figure out what the expenses are going to be. The board was all in favor of the motion made by the Saline County Judge on the letter begin sent.
Sheriff Rodney Wright wanted to let the board know about the timeline for the jail construction. Completion is expected to be May 2024.
Saline County Judge Matt Brumley was concerned about a delay or no ambulances available in the county. Pafford Ambulance Operations Manager Devin Holland stated that hospital staffing was causing problems with delaying ambulances. The On-Duty Supervisor for Pafford Ambulance Service and the 911 Dispatchers stay in contact with each other on delays within the county. The dispatchers are able to see a map of where ambulances are at within the county. Ambulances are called in from MEMS and LifeNet when needed to assist our county.
Assistant Communications Manager Deanne Owen spoke about the Tree of Life. The tree is located in the hallway of the OEM/911 building. Awards are given to dispatchers with successful calls in recognition for life saving events. There will be 3 leaves to be placed since July 2022.
There was discussion about when the City of Bryant would be moving over to the county dispatch center. Chief Scotty Hodges asked about the Bryant dispatchers coming to the Saline County 911 center as dispatchers. Has anyone spoke to the Bryant dispatchers yet on the benefit package? Judge Matt Brumley will have our HR department Angie Drummond and Christy Peterson to reach out to the City of Bryant HR department to get answers on their dispatchers. Not sure how many of Bryant dispatchers are coming to Saline County at this time. Chief Scotty Hodges is wanting Bryant to be able to bring trained dispatchers with them so it is not a burden on our dispatchers trying to keep up with the call load. We need a definite answer from the City of Bryant employees if they are coming over or not. Chief Carl Minden stated there are issues with the CAD system for Spillman vs. Southern software for the Bryant Police department. These issues are being addressed. He stated that the Bryant Fire Department is willing to go to Southern Software and has no problems doing this as soon as possible. The Police Department would come over when they got the issues straightened out with the CAD. They are not wanting to leave Spillman. Benton Fire Chief Russ Evans did state that the 911 board had voted previously that there was a motion made for full consolidation only for the City of Bryant. February 2024 is the scheduled time for the soft consolidation.
A motion was made to adjourn by Saline County Judge Matt Brumley and 2nd by Benton Mayor Tom Farmer. Meeting adjourned at 10:00 am.
We did transfer out from under the S.O. and moved under the direction of our D.E.M. Director and County Judge, on January 1st, 2018.
Looking toward the transition, we simply had to have a CAD that would handle our current call volume, number of seats filled at one time, our desires and capabilities and future growth. The solution that the S.O. had immediately prior to the transition was not an option for us, due to its lack of abilities and user friendliness
As a little history on the various CAD systems over the years, I was employed by the Sheriff’s Office from 1991 up to my retirement in 2017 and was either involved, or totally responsible, for transitioning them from hand-written logs through 2 separate AT&T CAD’s, the Justice Solutions CAD (for 9 months) and then to Southern Software’s CAD in 2018.
That journey through CAD’s was out of necessity, as they either reached their end of life or we outgrew their capabilities, with the exception of the JS CAD. It was a disaster that wouldn’t work for our needs at all and there was never an intent of it making the transition over to us, or us utilizing it long term. We did have to use it for those 9 months, with most of those 9 months being a “dual entry” mode type of dispatching, as we had already started the transition to Southern and utilized that time for hands on training with the Southern CAD.
We made the decision to go with Southern’s CAD after months of online research, teleconference/zoom meetings, visits with various vendors at conferences and demos. We chose Southern Software as the most advantageous and capable CAD, for our needs, based on abilities, scaling, ease of conversion (this was a biggie, as we had utilized several different CAD’s over the years and needed to retain that info….JS CAD was the only system that was not able to be converted due to it being a proprietary database that is not sharable or compatible with most “standard” databases, Oracle/Sql/Etc), MDT functionality, user friendly GUI and a few other capabilities that will carry us into the future.
We turned in a plan at the end of the year for the Hot Springs PD to consolidate into our Center. They too use Spillman, for not only dispatch but for their RMS and investigative management systems as well, and have for nearly 30 years, I believe. Obviously, the amount of data that they have available to them from over the years is invaluable. If we do consolidate, it looks like they are leaning toward keeping Spillman for their RMS and IMS, and transitioning over to our existing Southern CAD during the consolidation process. If this happens, I could see us converting all of their Spillman data into Southern (again, there is a vast amount of useful info in their system) and just picking up with their next CFS being entered into Southern alone.
2 CAD systems for one dispatch operation (center) has been proven to be inefficient and impractical. Since most CAD’s do not allow for a real-time connection to each other, the only option for “complete” cad searches is to have your TC’s to switch back and forth between two separate computers/systems for past call/person/vehicle/article information searches, causing duplicated efforts for every single system interaction (unless there is something new on the market that I’m unfamiliar with).
Converting one CAD’s data into the other is much more efficient and puts the search for combined years of collected data between the consolidated agencies at the fingertips of each TC, or anyone else from the respective departments, resulting in only one search query for all of the data.
Where the true problem may come into play for you, as it will for us, is if Bryant utilizes Spillman for CAD, RMS, IMS or any other combination of modules. If they only use CAD, it’s a simple conversion and you rock on with both the old and new data of both agencies. It they use other modules of Spillman (RMS for instance) and intend to keep them, you will not have access to any of the “new” data that is entered by them into IMS, after the conversion, without added expense (licensing). I know that this makes sense to you, but may not to others who do not see it every day. From my research and consolidation classes, the combining of CAD’s is always at the forethought and is the easiest thing to accomplish, but the other aspects that provide beneficial information to you and your responders (RMS, IMS, Civil Management, Evidence Management) will come to an end, unless you maintain two separate systems and servers. This is stupid expensive, especially with Spillman (insert any Motorola owned company or value-added reseller).
Return to the March 2023 meeting article at this link: www.mysaline.com/county-911-031623/.