CRESTVIEW — The Crestview Police Department’s new computer system’s capabilities outshine the agency’s previous technology to such an extent that even the agency’s new critical systems manager is sometimes surprised.
The department implemented the SunGard Public Sector ONESolution system following the City Council’s November 2015 approval. The $800,000 system replaced a 10-year-old system that allegedly was producing erroneous crime data.
The problems became known that spring during the mayoral election, when the skewed data became a campaign issue, resulting in countless labor while officers manually reviewed reports and corrected mistakes, which consisted mainly of wrongly categorized crimes.
Starting in January 2016, Sgt. Don Howe and Officer Len Steinmeier coordinated months of installation, integration and data migration to SunGard and brought the new system online Sept. 28.
“They were instrumental in installing it and testing it,” Police Chief Tony Taylor said. “What they did was incredible.”
TWEAKS AND BUGS
Now the police department, working closely with SunGard specialists, is tweaking and personalizing the system specifically for Crestview’s needs.
Kathy Duke, who had retired from a similar IT position at the Fort Walton Beach Police Department, is compiling and addressing patrol officers’ reports of bugs in the system. Such glitches are expected with a system that complex, she said.
“With any new system, there obviously will be bugs that have to be worked out,” she said. “You just go through these things and work them out.”
For example, SunGard allows officers to log traffic information into their laptops, which compiles a report and issues a violation ticket if needed. Or at least, it should.
“Right now we have an issue with our printer module,” Duke said.
Already officers are seeing what SunGard can do.
“It’s got lots of potential,” Officer Rob DeRoche said. “It’s definitely got advantages, but some things we’ve got to work out, like the way we used to do things versus how we can do it now.”
Crestview’s police force is constantly experiencing an increase in calls for service. Between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Friday, for example, a few clicks of a button showed Duke that patrol officers had received 100 calls for service, for matters including thefts, car crashes, citizen complaints, alarms going off and one suicide threat.
When fully integrated, SunGard will not only speed officers back to patrol duties after answering such calls, but will continue administrative processes, such as digitally transmitting information to the Okaloosa County Clerk of Court’s office.
In addition, the system can be configured to meet Crestview’s unique needs rather than being a blanket “one-size-fits-all” program, Duke said.
OFFICERS’ WORKSTATIONS
Using patrol car laptop computers — “officers’ workstations,” Duke calls them — incident reports are transmitted directly to police department servers, precluding officers having to return to headquarters to write up reports.
As the system is more fully integrated, traffic crash information will go directly to the Florida Highway Patrol in Tallahassee where insurance companies can access it without needing to come to the police department for paper copies, freeing up office staff for other duties.
Duke is confident SunGard will expedite patrol officers’ administrative duties, freeing them for tasks that are more important.
“You don’t want to have to make an officer or administrative staff do more than they need to,” Duke said. “Especially if it doesn’t involve helping people right in Crestview.”
The system also allows Duke, dispatchers and command staff to see where patrol cars are at all times on a map of the city.
It also has an unexpected benefit for public safety, one that proved a little embarrassing to address.
“We can see how fast a unit is driving,” Duke said. “Patrol sergeants had to speak to a few of the officers about obeying the speed limits.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview police's new IT system has 'lots of potential'