Authorizing the Purchase of a Replacement Electronic Law Enforcement and Public Safety System

Background: In 1999, the Sauk County Sheriff’s Department purchased the current Visionair system which provides for records management, computer aided dispatch, in-car data and case management.  Despite numerous updates and revisions over the years, the system has become outdated and does not fully meet the requirements of modern law enforcement activities. 

Through the 2018 budget development process, funding was appropriated from fund balance to provide for the replacement of this system.  At that time, a rough estimate was obtained from a system vendor and, as a result, $330,000 was included in the 2018 MIS budget for the Sheriff’s Department.

In the fall of 2017, the Sheriff’s Department, in conjunction with MIS, began the process of evaluating possible replacements for the Visionair system.  In March of 2018, proposals were obtained from five qualified vendors through an RFP process.  These proposals were evaluated for compliance with a comprehensive set of business requirements and the top ranking vendors were invited to provide scripted demonstrations, to allow end users to evaluate the usability of these systems.  These evaluations were scored accordingly and the final scores were combined with the requirements compliance scores, derived from the proposals,  to arrive at a final recommendation.