Rock Island Today

Rock Island County Emergency Telephone System Board met March 5.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Anderson, Beswick, Gault, Landi, Meyers, Ramsey, Seiver, VanKlaveren

BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT:

OTHERS PRESENT: Scott Ryckeghem, Margo Sparbel, Stacy Houzenga, QComm; Summer O’Leary, Moline Police Department; Chris Johnson, Milan Police Department; Curt Champion, Rock Island County; Chelsea Noe, Arsenal; Tracey Screechfield, SECC; Tom Helbing, FirstNet; Jim Uskavitch; Rich Schipper, Wayne Mooney, Christine Cary, Bi-State Regional Commission

1. Approval of the February 6, 2024 Minutes. Seiver asked Schipper to verify the Heartland motion was correct. Schipper stated the language was correct. VanKlaveren moved that the minutes of the February meeting be approved as presented. Beswick seconded, and the motion was approved.

2. Financial Reports. Cary distributed the March Accounts Payable totaling $136,368.79. Anderson moved that the March accounts payable be approved for payment. Gault seconded, and the motion was approved unanimously by roll call vote. The following financial report was presented:

POOL Balance:          $  2,044,000.00

Checkbook Balance:  $     167,283.38

TOTAL                        $  2,211,283.38

Feb ‘24 Surcharge:    $     157,722.98

a. Budget – VanKlavern made a motion to approve the budget sheet, Anderson seconded, and the motion carried.

3. PSAP Reports.

a. County – Meyers reported 10 TCs, 1 in training, and 2 moving on to background.

b. Rock Island – Landi reported they are down 1 TC. They started interviews and have around 16 applicants, and are hoping to hire 1 or 2 in the near future.

c. QComm – Ryckeghem stated they are looking to onboard 3 people and have interviews set up for next week. He stated they had approximately 50 applicants, and after testing, they are down to about half. He reiterated what Noe stated: QComm has taken a handful of transfers from the Arsenal over the last month.

d. Arsenal – Noe stated they have 4 fully trained TCs and 2 in training that should be completed in the next 6 weeks. Due to vacations and family emergencies, they transferred to QComm a few times, and they have a few others scheduled over the next few weeks.

e. SECC – Screechfield stated they are down 6, 4 in training, and 1 TC leaving in April. The Director position is still vacant, and applications closed yesterday.

f. CESSA Update – Gault stated he is on the Region 2 board, and he gave an update on CESSA. He stated that he and Dennis Duke, the CEO of Robert Young, traveled to McDonough Schuyler County ETSB in Macomb last month. They made a presentation to their ETSB requesting they be the pilot PSAP for the CESSA implementation. The reason for the request is because they are the only PSAP that is a PowerPhone client, and the state currently has contracted PowerPhone to create scripts that will change mental health dispatching. He stated the state statue is requiring first responders to treat mental health differently, that mental health is a medical call, and law enforcement should not be responding to those calls unless there is a physical threat or a crime was committed. He went on to state that the statute says that the mere categorization of mental health is not enough to be a physical threat. Dispatchers will need to triage incoming calls for information to determine if it should be diverted to 988, mobile crisis response, or if there is another level of response in the statewide risk matrix. To accomplish this, scripts need to be created and provided by the state, and training needs to be developed and delivered to the PSAPs. This is set to be implemented by July 1, 2024; however, there is a bill pending to extend the deadline to July 1, 2025. Seiver asked the status of indemnification, either agency or dispatcher, and Gault responded they are indemnified because they are specifically enumerated by statute.

4. Secondary PSAP Reports.

a. AMT EMS – No Report.

b. Medic EMS – No Report.

5. Technical Report.

a. CentralSquare Pro Field Ops – Schipper stated he will purchase the additional 6 licenses that were approved last meeting and get them distributed.

b. Heartland Business Systems – Schipper stated the Barracuda software that was discussed last meeting has been ordered, and licenses are in place.

c. Computer Upgrades – Schipper reported that all dispatch computers have been upgraded or replaced over the last month. Because of the upgrade, the ArcGIS map installed portion of CS Pro must be updated, and it coincided perfectly with a request to reinstall the map updates to correct an issue where the ortho layer doesn’t show up in certain parts of the map. That reinstall did not work at County or Arsenal, but it did at QComm. Schipper stated he will reopen the CS Pro ticket. Also, new speakers were added at QComm and RICOMM that match the RICO and Arsenal speakers.

d. CrowdStrike – Schipper stated that it was verified through an admin call that the state’s contract with CrowdStrike is current for three years.

e. Vertiv Proposal – Schipper reported that we received a proposal from Vertiv for UPS maintenance. He stated the current quote does not include Silvis and would request a new quote to include Silvis. Gault had some concerns regarding the increase from last year to this year and how adding one agency would increase the price so much. Schipper stated that it depends on what UPS that agency has; it isn’t about the site, it is about maintaining the specific equipment. Anderson made a motion to proceed, but not to exceed $23,000. Ramsey seconded, and the motion was approved unanimously by roll call vote.

f. CentralSquare Evidence Storage Issue (Data Retrieval Issue) – O’Leary reported they are continuing to have an issue pulling large case files out of the system without parsing it into several smaller pieces. She stated this has been a problem for over 18 months, with CS Pro saying they would fix the issue; however, it remains an ongoing problem. Her request of the Board is to get a letter from legal to CS Pro trying to push that fix. Gault stated this issue ties into a problem with the State’s Attorney’s Office portal still not working for prosecution. Seiver stated we have the groundwork to make a pretty good case that either we walk away from the product or make a case to get credits as they did with DEMS. Schipper stated the ticket dealing with the Attorney Portal had the same issue with large files, and CentralSquare’s response to the ticket was that the overall solution is an enhancement that the product team is working on. Future updates would come from the product team, and because of this, they closed the ticket. Schipper found multiple closed tickets all dealing with the following issues: inability to save changes, downloading large files, photos not loading properly, etc., and stating it is something they are going to do, but haven’t done yet. VanKlaveren stated the State’s Attorney’s Office issue is the portal wasn’t working, and they were having discovery issues. Therefore, they were created as a separate agency, so we could get them the information they needed. Now we need to figure out how to deal with this issue going forward, and he suggested doing a little more research. Seiver asked the Board to clarify what they are asking, for and Gault stated it is a file storage and retrieval issue. We want to know their timeline to rectify these issues. Seiver noted we are roughly incurring $12,000 a year because their software did not work, and we had to use a work around. Gault stated we need to be able to retrieve our information regardless of the size of the report. Seiver stated he believed we have a strong position because we fronted the additional money, but we are still not getting the functionality, which is the core issue. This ties into if we move forward with CentralSquare for years six-ten. They need to definitively commit to functionality, dates, and costs before we can discuss contract renewal. Gault inquired about hiring a consultant to help us decide how to evaluate different products. Schipper stated it is the individual agencies, ticketing system, and meetings that tell us where we are at now; it would take too long to catch up a consultant. Seiver stated if we terminate our contract, we must give 30 days for CentralSquare to rectify their failure, and then there is a timeline after. Part of our path going forward is to inform CentralSquare that we are not automatically renewing. It doesn’t terminate the contract, but it puts them on notice that we need this fixed. A letter from our attorney reinforces that we are serious about needing the issues resolved. Houzenga noted that since the Board was discussing a potential letter, there are also some significant CAD issues that need to be resolved as well. Anderson stated we should let CentralSquare know we were very encouraged after our last round with John Kelly, but now we have lost their attention. She suggested we should create an all-inclusive summary for them. Seiver stated he would like to get John Kelly’s opinion if this is a good direction to go as a Board, again not looking to break the contract just as leverage to get these issues fixed. Anderson made a motion to assign the build teams to pull together all the documentation of the cases and contexts they had that were useful. Anything that would support our case. Simultaneously, we should approach John Kelly for legal advice on this, so when we have the documentation together, we are ready to go with his advice. Gault seconded the motion, and it was approved unanimously by roll call vote.

6. Other Business.

a. CentralSquare Renewal Quote – Seiver stated the previous discussion ties into the CentralSquare renewal. He distributed a spreadsheet of the quote to the Board. Gault stated it might be possible to negotiate years and percentage instead of accepting the automatic renewal of 5 years at a 4% percent increase annually. He stated we should tell them we are only looking at a one-year extension. Seiver agreed that would buy some time to start comparing other products. Anderson suggested we start looking at other vendors right now, and Seiver stated that the national conference would be a great time to schedule meetings with vendors to look at different products. Gault made a motion to table the discussion on the CentralSquare quote. Anderson seconded, and the motion was approved unanimously by roll call vote.

7. Public Comment – There were no public comments.

8. Executive Session. At 11:45 a.m. VanKlaveren moved that the Board enter into executive session after a 5- minute break to discuss appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees (5ILCS 120/2c (1)). Landi seconded, and the motion was approved. The meeting adjourned to executive session at 11:51 a.m. Anderson made a motion to exit executive session at 12:25 p.m. VanKlaveren seconded, and the motion was approved. No action was taken during executive session.

a. Action from Executive Session. VanKlaveren made a motion to open discussion on compensation for employees, and Beswick seconded. Gault made a motion to amend the previous motion to direct the Chairman and Vice Chairman to complete Rich Schipper’s annual performance evaluation, with a recommendation of a 3% merit. Anderson seconded, and the amended motion was approved unanimously by roll call vote.

9. Adjournment. The meeting adjourned at 12:30 p.m. The next monthly meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, April 2, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. at the Rock Island Police Department.

https://www.rockislandcountyil.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03052024-963