The Gunnison City Council approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the purchase of a new Records Management System (RMS) for the Gunnison Police Department (GPD) to accompany an update to the RMS and Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems used by the Gunnison-Hinsdale Emergency Telephone Service Authority (GHCETSA).
The GHCETSA provides 24-hour emergency dispatch services for a range of emergency service providers in Hinsdale and Gunnison, including the GPD.
Sam Costello, chief of police for Gunnison, explained the need for the updated RMS to the board, beginning by saying that CAD systems help dispatchers route information from phone calls of police officers, firefighters and other first responders while RMS helps with writing and managing police reports and other documents.
He said that GHCETSA has identified a need to replace its CAD system. “It’s an old system,” he said of the current system. “It is not what I would call contemporary in modern law enforcement or emergency dispatch. It lacks a lot of functionality that should be present in order to do things as efficiently as possible.”
Costello said that GHCETSA would move forward with the CAD system replacement and whether any of its partner agencies “get on board” or not, since it has been identified by GHCETSA and its members as the number one strategic priority for the organization.
He said that there is a related RMS that accompanies the new CAD and that GHCETSA has agreed to also implement it.
The GPD could go to the new RMS now or choose not to, Costello said, but it would likely need to move to it eventually due to the functionality of how the CAD interacts with the RMS. “It’s kind of a package deal,” he said, adding that the GPD could choose to make this switch in a different phase.
He said that GHCETSA worked with Pitkin County to put out a request for proposals to replace the CAD system and RMS and selected 10-8 Systems for GHCETSA, although Pitkin County selected a different provider.
GHCETSA agreed to move forward with the CAD update in August and this update will be paid for through the Emergency Telephone Charge fees in GHCETSA’s budget and will not impact the GPD or the city’s budget.
He said that the GHCETSA board has agreed to pay half of the approximately $36,000 yearly fee that the GPD will have to pay to implement the updated RMS system for the first year if it implements it now, but that the GPD would have to pay the full fee and potentially draft its own agreement with 10-8 Systems if it implements it later.
Costello added that, in 2029 and beyond, the GPD would have to pay the full fee.
“So, there is a little bit of benefit if we decide to do this now,” he said.
He said the current RMS is “archaic” and “literally one step away from writing things with your pencil” as well as having poor compatibility writing reports on patrol car computers.
“To me, that mobile function is super important because it puts officers in the field rather than at the station,” he said. “And so, if we’re true about community and having officers out in the community, it’s really important that they can do that really important part of their work, which is report writing in the field.”
Costello said that, with the current RMS, GPD is having to pay for an additional system that allows the RMS to connect with the computers in the department’s police cars, which costs about $9,000 per year.
He said this cost would end with the updated RMS since the 10-8 Systems RMS is cloud based and can be accessed anywhere with an internet connection.
Costello said that the new RMS would also help with data collection for things like deploying resources or determining staffing needs.
“We are moving in a variety of ways in the police department into contemporary policing,” he said. “Not to say or be critical of anyone in the past, but we were way behind the times in regard to technology and everything else, cars and all that stuff. This is another step towards getting us level with what the vast majority of agencies in the United States are doing. This is one of the major providers. They’re kind of an up-and-comer, but this adds a bunch of functionality that we don’t have now.”
The GPD is currently paying about $31,000 a year for its current RMS system in addition to the $9,000 to use the system in the department’s cars, Costello said.
He said the GPD would still have to retain access to the old system for the purposes of providing public records and continuing active cases and prosecutions and that the options the department is looking at for retaining access would likely not cost more than $7,000 a year to maintain.
Overall, Costello said that this combination of costs would lead to a predicted savings of about $6,000 in 2027 for going to the new system. “To me, this seems like a no brainer,” he said. “Gets us down the road as far as technology goes. It also saves us some money for a couple of years and allows us to plan for that bigger expenditure for the full deal in 2029.”
Councilor Loren Ahonen asked if there were any risks associated with the new system’s connection to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database and the more mobile and dispersed access it would allow.
Costello said the technology is sufficiently common that NCIC database access is well secured and the data access requirements are clearly established and stringently restricted. He said that the system would also allow some improvements in confidentiality and privacy, such as removing the need for the GPD to transmit licenses to be run over the radio where anyone with a scanner can hear.
Ahonen also asked how costs are apportioned between GHCETSA members. Costello explained that calls for service are the current metric for apportioning GHCETSA costs, but that this issue currently being discussed by the GHCETSA board.
He said that this discussion currently focuses on the complexity of calls and whether billing should reflect call complexity.
GHCETSA Executive Director Jodie Chinn said that the costs for the CAD and RMS contracts were apportioned to partner agencies based on the number of licenses needed by each agency.
She also said that GHCETSA plans to review the apportionment of user fees in 2028.
Ahonen said that it appeared that there would be a 13 percent difference in costs between the new and current RMS and that it “seems like a cost-effective decision to me.”
Costello said that, once the GPD reaches full payment for the RMS, it will still be paying less than about $40,000 it is currently paying for a much worse system.
Councilor Matt Schwartz asked whether the city would need to cover the cost of retaining access to the current RMS system in addition to paying for the new one, or if that cost was included in the about $36,000 yearly cost for the new system.
Costello said that there would likely be a one- or two-year window where the GPD would have to pay for both, due to the statute of limitations and records retention rules, but that this cost would go away in the future.
“I think this is a great opportunity to include the RMS right off the bat,” Schwartz said. “I mean, when you’re working with a system, you might as well integrate everything as quickly as possible. I think it’s going to provide officers with an opportunity to be more efficient and spend more time on the street, which is always a good thing. So I’m definitely in favor of moving forward.”
The council then voted unanimously to approve the MOU for the updated RMS system.
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