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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMarch 5 2015 Board Meeting/  Department Of Emergency Management and 911 Communications 230 Government Center Drive, Suite 115 Wilmington, North Carolina 28403 Telephone (910) 798-6920 Fax (910) 798-6925 wlee@nhcgov.com  Warren Lee Director    Memorandum To: Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board Members  From: Warren Lee, Director  Subject: March 5, 2015 Board Summary  Date: April 20, 2015   A Public Safety Communications Center Policy Board meeting was held on Thursday March 5, 2015 at 10:00 AM in the Emergency Operation Center, 220 Government Center Drive, Wilmington, North Carolina. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Frank Blackley Jerry Brewer Tim Burgess Warren Lee Matt Holland Matt Davis Cynthia Deacon Sharon Braxton Leslie Chaney Robbie Matheson Guests Andy Whitley, NHC Emergency Management & 911 Debora Cottle, NHC Emergency Management & 911 Steven Still, NHC Emergency Management & 911 Zach Augustine, NHC IT Anthony Thomas, NHC IT Marcus Scott, NHC Fire Services Jennifer Smith, NHC Fire Services Chris Graham, WFD IT Harry Baumann, WPD IT Mike Gomes, City of Wilmington IT Mike Cavaluzzi, Wireless Jason Adams, Wireless The meeting was called to order at 10:02 am. Chairman Blackley asked if asked if everyone had a chance to review the minutes from December 4, 2014 meeting and if there were any questions, comments, changes or corrections. There were none. Chairman Blackley asked if there was a motion to approve the minutes. Cynthia Deacon made a motion and Matt Davis seconded. All in favor; none opposed. Motion passed. OLD BUSINESS: AVL No one was present to update on AVL Freedom App Chairman Blackley stated there is a Webinar this afternoon and Zach Augustine informed everyone that it was at 2 pm in the City EOC. They were presenting an overview of the Freedom App and its functionality. Chairman Blackley asked what was the status of the request to the IT Governance Committee (ITGC); Leslie Chaney stated that it was submitted in the budget for approval. They did recommend installation for the infrastructure required; the funding is included in the budget but the budget has not been approved. Chairman Blackley asked if there was a clear understanding from the NC 911 Board of what was surcharge eligible. Warren Lee stated that they were still in discussion with the NC 911 Board as to what was surcharge eligible and not just in reference to the Freedom App. Chairman Blackley asked if there were tax dollars used to fund items out of the general fund for the municipalities. Leslie stated there was currently a site license that was being paid out of the IT budget that covered the municipalities. They are discussing these items with the NC 911 Board to see what is surcharge eligible. OSSI would not write a site license at the inception to cover the City of Wilmington agencies. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any more questions about Freedom App. No one had any. Surcharge Chairman Blackley asked if there were any questions on surcharge. No one had any. Chris Graham wanted to discuss AVL; Station 9 is working as it should since they started using MIFI and utilizing GPS over WIFI and testing is going well. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other items for old business. No one had any. NEW BUSINESS Chairman Blackley stated one of the items he had down for discussion was site licenses. He discovered that Guilford Metro had received permission from the NC 911 Board to obtain a site license but he is unsure what portion is surcharge eligible. Leslie stated that OSSI has provided a quote for licensing for all agencies. The price quoted is in addition to what is already being paid; there is no decrease with the upgrade the site license to include the City of Wilmington agencies. The quote submitted to New Hanover County is an additional $169,000 for the initial year and $30,000 for yearly maintenance. It is unclear which portions of these items are surcharge eligible. Warren stated that we have already received notification for this upcoming year of the amount that the NC 911 Board is going to disperse to New Hanover County. Anything over and above the current funding may require a grant from the NC 911 Board. Warren also said there are two projects out there that portions are surcharge eligible and a grant request has been submitted to the NC 911 Board; one project is upgrade to the 800 MHz radio system which a portion is surcharge eligible and the second project is the backup EOC/911 Center. Chairman Blackley asked if there was any way to ensure that there was equitable distribution; Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Wrightsville Beach and UNC-W are benefitting from the licenses and the fees that are paid out of the general fund which is tax driven when it is not being done for the City of Wilmington agencies. Leslie stated that New Hanover County is seriously looking into this if there is surcharge money available to use it for these purposes since there has been a change in the rules. Cynthia Deacon asked if there was an idea of the additional cost for maintenance. Warren stated there are numerous contracts just with the City of Wilmington Police Department; every time there was a group of users added they added another contract. OSSI may likely have 50 contracts just with the Police Dept. This site license will not do away with the current contracts between all the agencies; it would be in addition to what is already in place. Chairman Blackley asked if it was possible for the City of Wilmington to drop the contracts once the new site license is in place. Leslie stated that no they cannot. Leslie provided a copy of the last OSSI bill. Each time there were licenses added they added it to the invoices. OSSI added the new items to the old making a separate line item for each new set of licenses purchased. It was verified yesterday that yes it is in addition to the current licenses in place. Chairman Blackley stated that they doesn’t make sense to have a new site license and still pay for the old maintenance. Leslie stated the quote only covers their changes and additions to the current licenses. Warren stated that there still needs clarification of eligible charges from the NC 911 Board. Leslie said that there might be an advantage of everyone getting OSSI to review past purchases and roll it all up into one contract if it is possible. There would have to be an agreement between the agencies and New Hanover County so that New Hanover County could receive monies for the ineligible surcharge items from each agency. We are not at this phase yet since the NC 911 Board has not informed New Hanover County what is eligible and what is not. The new quote did include a site license for all agencies for the Freedom App. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other questions or comments. No one had any. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other items for new business. Robbie Matheson had a request for a switch they are doing for new electronic patient charting software. There needs to be an interface with CAD so that they can be compliant with regulatory requirements for national standards. Leslie asked who the project manager with the hospital and Robbie told her John Landers and Tim Corbett were working on this. Robbie stated that they wanted a commitment from the county that they could do this; Leslie said they would have a discussion with the IT staff from the hospital to see how and when and could this be done. Leslie asked if Robbie would coordinate the hospital staff to be involved and get a meeting set up with Leslie’s team for the discussion. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other items for new business. No one had any. OTHER ITEMS AND REPORTS 9-1-1 Center Chairman Blackley asked Warren Lee to update everyone on the Center. Warren stated that we are currently testing for the 911 Center for a new class for the telecommunicators. Hopefully the new class will start the beginning of April. Chairman Blackley asked if there was a larger turnover rate with New Hanover County or was it comparable to other centers. Debora stated that it is the same everywhere due to the hours, stress and being sedentary. There is not one definitive answer for the turnover; it is a combination. Chairman Blackley asked if call takers were experienced people or fairly new. Debora stated that it depends on who applies. New Hanover County has had some people transfer from other agencies but some of the best call takers have been people without experience. Warren stated some people come in and realize this is not for them and there are other opportunities out there. There is a lot of time and money training people. Three telecommunicators just left and went to UNC-W. Retention is a big issue that is being studied, finding good people and keeping them. Chairman Blackley asked if they could update on call processing times. Andy Whitley said they are meeting the end of the month to pull data and ensure that everyone is using the same criteria. They will plan on meeting regularly and create a standard policy. Chairman Blackley stated that Chief Mason will be doing an applied research project on call processing. He may do a presentation to the Board with recommendations. IT Chairman Blackley asked for any news from IT. Zach Augustine introduced Anthony Thomas, he is a new manager in IT. IT has just completed an update to the PROQA Medical, Fire and AQUA. IT has also been testing mobile routers on one of the fire engines. Hopefully IT will move to a mobile router in every truck. GIS layers roadway network project is coming to a close this week. Hopefully, we can move forward with Optima and complete that within a month or two. There have been some issues with rip and run printers; currently the only one showing off line is the Kure Beach printer. There have been issues with County Deputies working in the City Task force. Some of the users weren’t coming over in MFR correctly but Sharon Braxton did an employee push that resolved the issue. There is a large Sungard update; there will be extensive testing on the training side before it is relayed to users. This update includes a lot of fixes that IT has been waiting for. Sharon Braxton asked if Zach had a date to implement the CAD update. Anthony Thomas said they were going to have to complete the testing in training to see what was involved before the CAD update would be done. Andy Whitley stated that it was a client testing version and has not been released to the public. It will be used to test issue that were found. After the testing is complete a release day will be determined. Chairman Blackley asked if there any other questions for IT. No one had any. Change Management Andy Whitley stated that with the IT Governance Committee addressing issues there was no longer a need for a Change Management Committee and it has been discontinued. Cynthia Deacon wanted to address the issue of retention with the telecommunicators; the three telecommunicators informed UNC-W the reason for the move was their salaries. UNC-W starts a telecommunicator out at $34,000 (16.34 an hour). It may be worth it to New Hanover County to look at the other agencies are paying in this area. UNC-W offers pay differential for nights and weekends. The county benefits are somewhat better than the state benefits. Matt Davis brought up the article in the paper about the stress telecommunicators go through. On the response end you don’t always see what they go through on the receiving end as a telecommunicator. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other items for discussion. Jerry Brewer asked if an agency chooses to go encrypted are they required to notify the Board. Jerry said the issue was that Carolina Beach encrypted their dispatch channel so the fire back in November and deputies were crossing the bridge and could not talk to Carolina Beach. Is there any way to communicate when an agency encrypts a channel that another agency has access to for mutual aid. This would help for any future events that require multiple agencies. The C Bank is the same on every radio in the county which would be where there would be communication. Jerry stated they did not utilize PS channels on that night. Jerry wanted to know if there could be email letting Board members know when some of the channels are encrypted. Chairman Blackley asked Warren if Emergency Management & 911 are informed of channels being encrypted. Warren stated yes, since they have to update the consoles. Chairman Blackley asked if Warren could send out information when the encryption is requested. Jerry said that the airport police are now talking about encrypting their channel. Chairman Blackley asked if there was a way to modify the process to include notification of encryption. Warren stated that he would be glad to share the information if he receives it. Andy recommended creating an email group to inform members of a radio change that may affect one or more agencies. Matt Davis reiterated that for multiple agencies to assist in an event the responders need be on a PS channel which is not being done by all agencies. Warren stated that he would be happy to notify everyone when he is made aware of a channel being encrypted. Chairman Blackley asked if there were any other items for discussion. There were none. Meeting adjourned at 10:46 a.m.