News

$6.6M Computer Dispatch System Under Fire in Md.

SCOTT DAUGHERTY; Staff Writer

12/19/2011

In the week since county officials launched a new computer-aided dispatch system, police officers have gone into calls "blind" and dispatchers have lost track of ambulances and fire crews, according to the leaders of some local unions and several officers and firefighters

The $6.6 million system, which went live eight days ago, was plagued with problems over the weekend, said O'Brien Atkinson, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 70.

And in interviews, police officers complained that they could no longer review an address' prior calls for service before responding to an emergency and that dispatchers couldn't identify or properly locate them in the county.

"They implemented the system before it was ready," Atkinson said Tuesday after a three-hour conference call with the department's officials and representatives of the company behind the new software. "The dispatchers don't seem to know the system ... or the system doesn't work."

County officials defended the new system, which was purchased four years ago after a competitive bid process.

"Sure there are a few little kinks, but the main functions are working fine," said Bill Ryan, the county's director of information technology.

Justin Mulcahy, a spokesman for the county Police Department, stressed that the department is working to iron out the kinks. He said representatives from the vendor - Tiburon Inc. of Pleasanton, Calif. - will stay on site until Friday.

"As with any new technology ... growing pains are expected and there will be a learning curve," Mulcahy said.

The county purchased the Tiburon E911 Computer-Aided Dispatch and Record Management System in January 2008 after an 18-month selection process. The system is used by the county police and fire departments, the county sheriff's and state's attorney offices and the county's detention facilities.

The system was purchased to replace two aging computer programs installed in 1986. Ryan said the old record management software was antiquated and would have effectively stopped working on Jan. 1 due to a Y2K-style glitch.

According to a spokesman for County Executive John R. Leopold, the county put out a request for proposal July 24, 2006, and received four responses.

Ryan said representatives from his office and the five agencies that use the systems were involved in the selection process and that Tiburon received the highest marks.

The new system, which will cost $300,000 a year to maintain, was turned on at 11 p.m. Dec. 6.

Ryan said the system will let the county do more things and keep closer tabs on resources.

The new system also is based on a modern, graphic interface with windows and pull-down menus, he said. The old one was text based.

Ryan said that due to the complex nature of the new system, the county could not run the old and new systems at the same time.

"Nothing can really be run parallel. It's got to be one way or the other," he said, stressing that his staff did extensive testing over the past four years to make sure it would work. "We waited to get this right."

Complaints

While police officers, 911 call takers and emergency dispatchers received between 12 and 32 hours of training on the new system earlier this year, the transition last week was far from smooth, union leaders said.

Over the weekend, complaints from officers and firefighters poured into the Maryland Gazette and the various unions. They said the system kept crashing and locking up, and lacked some of the features they had come to rely on over the past 25 years.

They new system, police and firefighters said, forces them to sift through each other's calls to find what is happening in their area. Its graphical layout, they said, is too complicated and hard to read.

"Right now, the system can't do what the old system did," said Lt. Timothy Zywiolek, the president of the union representing the county's police lieutenants. He said he likes the new reporting software, but thinks the new dispatch system is putting the county "back several years."

Craig Oldershaw, president of the union that represents the bulk of the county's firefighters, agreed.

"The department and the county executive have not only potentially endangered the lives of the citizens (of Anne Arundel County), but those that are there to protect them," he said.

Among the chief concerns for county police officers contacted by the Maryland Gazette was whether the new system still lets them search an address' prior calls for service.

Under the old system, officers had access to one year's worth of prior calls. Several officers said the new system seemed to lack most - if not all - of that information. They feared they were going into calls "blind."

Mulcahy said yesterday the new system offers access to 90 days worth of prior calls and all "caution notes" the department has ever amassed on a particular address. He said programers are working to make it so dispatchers can use the system to search an additional 10 months' worth of prior calls.

While hopeful that this is true, Atkinson remained skeptical.

"I know they believe the past 90 days are in there, but I've heard from officers that is clearly not the case," he said. "We rely on these computers to know what to expect. ... Every bit of information we can get is good."

Atkinson said he was heartened that the department's brass was willing to speak with him and a member of his board about the new system. But despite the county's apparent willingness to address concerns, Atkinson said he is not ready to support the system.

"If they can't get it to work," he said, "they need to pull the plug."

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sdaugherty@capgaznews.com