City, County Feud Over Computer System Soaring Costs, Schedule Delays Mark Law Enforcement Dispatch Software
Most first-time computer buyer know the feeling.
The hunt starts with the desire to perform a few specific tasks. The original budget proves unrealistic, even for a starter computer. And since you’re shelling out more than expected anyway, it makes sense to buy a do-it-all system.
Soon the cost is hundreds or thousands of dollars more than expected.
Or millions of dollars, in the case of the computer system used by Spokane law enforcement and courts.
Switching to a new dispatch and records-keeping system cost six times the expected cost and has caused a rift between the city and the county that now threatens a federal grant. Some users say the new software is not as good as the system it replaced.
In 1988, when city and county voters approved a bond issue for law enforcement, $500,000 was earmarked for a computer-aided dispatch system. Then-Chief Terry Mangan and then-Sheriff Larry Erickson wrote in a report to elected officials that the Police Department had been researching CAD systems for two years and were confident the money would cover the entire cost.
Officials said CAD would make the transfer of information from the public to street cops more efficient.
Prior to CAD, 911 operators wrote out the vital information about calls, sending that note to the radio room via a pneumatic tube, like those used for drive-up banking. A supervisor reviewed each note and decided which should get top priority, then assigned each to dispatchers, who radioed officers with the information. The process took three to nine minutes, according to Mangan and Erickson’s 1988 report.
Under CAD, information from 911 calls is typed into a computer which automatically decides priority. The information immediately appears on dispatchers’ screens, drastically reducing the required time.
Police and Sheriff’s Department administrators say CAD has met their expectations since it went operational in 1993. It was augmented with a records management system (RMS) that came online in 1996.
“It’s a superb system,” said Police Capt. Al Odenthal, who has been in charge of CAD/RMS since 1998.
Some street cops, however, say RMS makes name searches difficult by requiring exact information. If an officer wants to know about John Doe, for instance, he better know Doe’s middle initial and birthdate. Under the system CAD/RMS replaced, dispatchers could have typed in “Doe, J.” and gotten the information.
And the cost has reached $3.2 million for a system that was delivered years behind schedule. The city and county paid a California consulting firm more than the entire project was supposed to cost.
County commissioners and the City Council were forced over the years to increase law enforcement budgets to meet additional expenses.
CAD/RMS operating costs now are more than twice 1990 predictions, at nearly $700,000 for next year. Instead of a staff of four, as was predicted, the system is run by a team of seven.
And the system gets poor reviews from the non-law enforcement agencies that must use it. Some have spent tens of thousands of dollars adapting their own computer systems to work with the new one - costs that aren’t reflected in the purchase price.
“We ended up taking a big step backward,” compared to The Inland Empire Police Information Network, the system that CAD replaced, said Tom Dowling, who retired last year as Municipal Court administrator.
“I don’t like it as well as TIEPIN, but since it’s what we’ve got, I’ve gotten used to it,” said Debbie Hontz, secretary for the prosecutor’s major crimes unit. “It seems to be down for maintenance on a fairly regular basis.”
County Commissioner Kate McCaslin said she’s heard complaints about CAD since the day she took office in 1997. She’s demanding more oversight of the system, which is operated by the city Police Department but gets 40 percent of its funding from the county.
Vicki Birkenthal, the county’s top computer guru, contends the Police Department vastly overpaid for the system - and still does, every time it needs an upgrade.
Clearly, the CAD/RMS project did not go smoothly for the city.
County records show that about $600,000 went to The Warner Group. For five years, the consulting firm managed the project for the city, helping decide what was needed and working with vendors that designed the software.
In a 1991 memo to the county, Warner Group president Howard Goodman estimated the firm would earn $238,000 to $278,000. But Goodman wrote that the complexity of the project made predictions difficult.
The Warner Group predicted in 1990 that CAD would be in use the following year with RMS following in 1992. The systems were three and four years late, respectively.
For months after the system came on-line, there were bugs to work out.
Then-Sheriff John Goldman complained to Mangan in 1996 that his staff wasn’t getting the training it needed. A Mangan underling responded with a memo stating that the blame rested with a handful of Goldman’s employees who were trained to be trainers, but weren’t spreading their knowledge.
Three years later, Odenthal and Sheriff Mark Sterk say they’re convinced current dissatisfaction with CAD/RMS will be resolved once a better training program is established.
“That’s something we’ve neglected in the past,” said Odenthal, who has been in charge of the system since 1998.
Sterk and Odenthal said that if the city and county don’t settle the latest dispute, they may lose $280,000 in federal money for putting mobile computers in patrol cars.
The county owes the Police Department $327,000 - 40 percent of what the department spent in 1997 on software to pipe CAD/RMS information into police cars, Odenthal said.
Until the money is paid, the county can’t have access to the new technology. The Sheriff’s Department has access to CAD/RMS now only through dispatchers because none of its cars has mobile computers.
“We took all the risks - all the risks - in trying to develop a system that worked in the field,” said Odenthal. “The county was invited to come along and decided not to.”
Including hardware, the city spent $1.5 million installing the mobile terminals in 80 cars. That’s separate from the $3.2 million spent developing CAD.
Odenthal said the grant would put more-versatile terminals in 15 police cruisers and 12 county cruisers.
Birkenthal contends software development should have cost only $50,000 to $100,000, making the county’s share $40,000. County commissioners are being generous by offering $75,000, she said.
Odenthal responded bluntly, saying Birkenthal “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
The situation is a far cry from the early 1970s, when the two law-enforcement agencies were ahead of the times. TIEPIN was considered a national model for mainframe police computer systems.
Under TIEPIN, police, corrections officials, judges, prosecutors and public defenders all had access to exactly the same information. Any authorized person from any of those agencies could add information about an individual who had dealings with police or the courts.
By the late-1970s, TIEPIN was considered outdated. It did a fine job of storing data, but was incapable of arranging information into analytical databases - to track crime trends, for instance. In 1986, county computer experts starting working on TIEPIN II, with the Police Department paying half the cost.
Enter Terry Mangan.
The new chief, who since has retired, was alarmed that so many people had access to police information, Odenthal said.
That, plus the desire to make dispatching more efficient, fueled Mangan’s drive for a CAD system. It provides only limited access to agencies other than law enforcement, a change that hasn’t set well with some in the judicial system. Nor is it fully integrated with computer systems serving other agencies, creating more work for those who must input data that used to sail through computer cables.
At first, the Police Department planned to integrate TIEPIN II into CAD, and the county continued working on the upgrade. But as the years passed, city police officials became more skeptical about TIEPIN II, and disgruntled over the $230,000 the department paid each year to help run the old system and create the new one.
In 1990, the police demanded a test of TIEPIN II. The result: It worked no faster than the old system and 60 percent of the reports that were entered into it could not be retrieved, according to an internal police memo.
Police administrators were no happier in 1991.
“After five years (of paying for software development) and $376,910, we are left with no usable product,” the late David Peffer, Mangan’s assistant chief, wrote in a 1991 memo to his boss.
Peffer suggested the city demand a refund from the county. Records don’t indicate whether Mangan ever made the demand, although no money was paid.
Ultimately, the Police Department decided not to use TIEPIN II. The county scrapped the project, giving up a city-county investment of about $900,000, a cost that is not reflected in the CAD bill.
Birkenthal, who came to work at the county toward the end of TIEPIN II development, said the city never gave the system a fair chance. Given far less time and money than the Police Department spent on CAD and RMS, all the kinks could have been worked out, she said.
“But by that time (the early 1990s), the atmosphere was poisoned” between the city and the county, Birkenthal said.
The issue is partly one of control.
Birkenthal and other county officials say the city resented having to use a county-run computer system. Police officials say the county’s computer experts haven’t gotten over the sting of losing TIEPIN II.
What’s clear is that the Police Department intended to run CAD without interference from the county’s computer team. In a 1995 memo stamped “confidential,” Capt. John Sullivan complained to Mangan that the team was “negative and openly critical” of CAD.
“It is also my opinion we should make sure they remain a minor player in the new system and not allow them to exercise any control now or in the future,” wrote Sullivan, whom Mangan later promoted to assistant chief.
McCaslin said the attitude stuck, and is partly the county’s fault. She notes that the same types of power struggles have erupted over trash disposal and sewage treatment.
“Over the years, county commissioners seemed to hand over control to the city,” she said. “Now, we’re trying to reverse that trend and say, `If we’re going to help pay the bills, we’re going to have a greater say in how the money is spent.”’
This sidebar appeared with the story: MONEY The total cost of switching to the CAD system has reached $3.2 million.