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County Administrator's Report 10. 16.
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| BCC Regular Meeting |
Budget & Finance Consent |
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| RECOMMENDATION: |
Recommendation Concerning an Upgrade to the County's E-911 System - Michael D. Weaver, Public Safety Department Director
That the Board take the following action concerning an upgrade to the County’s E-911 System:
A. Authorize the upgrade of the County's E-911 System to Cassidian Vesta 4 to ensure the integrity of the E-911 System for at least the next five years, using funding from E-911 Operations Fund (145) Reserves, in the amount of $692,287.73, including first year’s maintenance;
B. Approve a five-year Agreement (three-year initial term, with two one-year renewal options) with AT&T for the Cassidian/AT&T Proposal, including hardware (servers and workstations), call-handling software, 911-reporting software, IP phone sets, establishing a private 911 network, security services with updates, and 24/7 maintenance, and authorize the Chairman to sign the Agreement, pending Legal sign-off; and
C. Upon execution of the Agreement by the Chairman, authorize issuance of a Purchase Order(s) to AT&T, in the amount of $692,287.73, to initiate the Project. |
| BACKGROUND: |
Escambia County’s Cassidian Vesta CS E-911 System was purchased in June 2008 for $2,280,356. System implementation was started in November 2008, which consisted of three separate Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs); Public Safety Emergency Communications Center (ECC), Sheriff’s Office (ECSO) and Pensacola Police Department (PPD). The ECC is the county’s primary PSAP, the ECSO is a secondary for the County, and the PPD is the primary PSAP for the City. Each site is equipped with Cassidian Vesta CS call handling software that resides on servers and workstations. 911 call routing is provided by AT&T and is integrated with Vesta CS. AT&T, our exchange provider, is currently under contract with Escambia County for maintenance of our 911 System.
Two years ago we completed an upgrade to the System, driven by Nortel declaring bankruptcy and Avaya purchasing the company. Avaya immediately required Nortel equipment to be upgraded to its software standard for continued PBX support. The Avaya upgrade totaled $352,015.16 for all three 911 sites. We applied for a grant from the State of Florida E911 Board and were awarded $240,663.17. Under the rules of the grant at that time, a grantee could only receive grant funding for two PSAPs. We used the award to pay for the two most expensive upgrades, the ECC and ECSO, and applied County E-911 Reserve Funds to cover the cost of the PPD upgrade in the amount of $111,351.99.
Issue: Our E-911 System hardware (servers and workstations) is approaching its five year life span and failures are slowly starting to occur. We started looking into simply refreshing hardware as a way to keep the System operating in a cost effective way. We were taking this approach because Next Generation 911 (NEXGEN 911) standards are under development on a national level. The future of 911 is a continuation of voice, with the addition multimedia capabilities to support Text, Photos and Video operating on a Internet Protocol (IP)-based foundation. Many wireless providers will be offering the "Text-to-911" feature in Escambia County in 2014. Our current system cannot support these features.
In our quest to refresh hardware, serious problems became evident making this option unavailable.
• Vesta CS: Operates on a Windows XP Platform. XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft starting in April 2014. Cassidian is no longer offering upgrades or will load Vesta CS software on XP machines and also will no longer support 911 Reporting Software on XP. Additionally, Vesta CS operates on a Windows Server 2003 Application, which is also “end of life” as declared by Microsoft. Support will end in July 2015.
• Nortel 2216 Phones: The 2216 phones interface the Nortel (now Avaya) PBX with the Vesta CS Workstations and reside at each dispatch position. Each phone set operates solely as an interface, but not as a back up to system failures. These phones were given an “end of life” status when Nortel declared bankruptcy in 2009. There are several versions of the 2216, but the one needed as an interface is no longer on the market for purchase. Individual phone set failures will render 911 functions at the failed position unusable.
Solution: Cassidian has developed an intermediate NEXGEN product, Vesta 4. It is an expandable IP-based system and eliminates the need for PBX. Also, it interfaces with VOIP phone sets, which is included in the price and can be used independently of the computer workstations. Vesta 4 resides on a Windows 2007 Platform. The system will operate on a closed AT&T IP Network with built-in redundancy. Cassidian and AT&T are partnered together offering this as an upgrade to our existing system, when in fact it would be a completely new E-911 System.
Cost:
• $502,097.50 (Non-recurring) ECC, ECSO, & PPD
• $15,849.15 (Maintenance & Network Monthly Recurring Charges) ECC, ECSO, & PPD.
Funding: Due to a decline in the State 911 Trust Fund, we are not going to be able to qualify for a grant. The E911 Board is now not only looking at two years of 911 Fee Carryover, they are looking at the total in county 911 funds. Since we have $1.3 million in our Trust or Reserves, we are expected to pay for system upgrades or replacement. Not only did this new rule recently get adopted, but now grants will only be approved for one answering point, on a reimbursable basis. |
| BUDGETARY IMPACT: |
| Expenditure of the requested $692,287.73 will result leave a Reserve 145 Fund Balance of approximately $614,653.27. |
| LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS/SIGN-OFF: |
| Resulting agreement must be reviewed and approved as to form and legal sufficiency prior to execution by the Board Chairman. |
| PERSONNEL: |
| N/A |
| POLICY/REQUIREMENT FOR BOARD ACTION: |
| N/A |
| IMPLEMENTATION/COORDINATION: |
| The Public Safety Department will coordinate with AT&T and the County Attorney's office with regard to the Agreement and will issue a requisition to initiate the project following Agreement execution by the Chairman. |
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