BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – Eight weeks was enough time for Brown County to justify pulling the plug on its new, error-filled, 911 dispatch system.
The new $1.2 million system from Securus Technologies, which launched back on December 12, had come under immediate scrutiny from law enforcement agencies that claimed it was costing them time and resources.
“We had a number of major issues that we experienced after go-live that we didn’t experience in testing,” Brown County Public Safety Communications Director Cullen Peltier said to Brown County’s Public Safety Committee Wednesday evening.
Some of the glitches pertained to GPS location, while other failures were tied to the sending and receiving of standard alerts.
No matter the problem, it was not what officers were expecting.
Frustrated law enforcement officials cited the fact that they were often spending twice as much time as normal on routine traffic stops.
For Cullen Peltier, the problems became too alarming to consider simply pushing through with the system.
His department attempted to work with the vendor to fix the problems, but that was unsuccessful.
“We gave the company weeks, not months, and they weren’t able to meet those deadlines,” he explains.
The gameplan now is to transition back to the previous dispatch system, which can be described as a semi-long term fix.
“We know that we have to be on a system, whether it’s Securus or another system, by August of 2020,” says Peltier.
That’s because the old dispatch system becomes no longer supported at that time.
So in the time being Peltier and his department will be searching for a long-term fix, but until that is found the old system will be in place.
The old system had some problems of its own, which is why they initially moved-on from it, but those failures pale in comparison to the problems encountered through the system installed in December.
“What we’re working with now is becoming so difficult that we’re willing to go back and deal with those issues, rather than staying here and trying to power through it,” he says.
Unfortunately, the switchover process isn’t immediate and the flawed current system will have to remain in place for a little bit longer.
“It’s going to take us a few weeks probably to get back on to that old system and have it functioning the way that it did prior to us moving over to Securus,” explains Peltier.
While the immediate change isn’t perfect, Peltier says that feedback thus far from law enforcement has been positive.
“They’re happy that we’re abiding by the process and abiding by what we’ve been telling people,” he explains. “And they’re happy right now that their officers don’t have to put up with some of the flaws that are currently with the system.”
