Luzerne County Government

March 18, 2010

County gets 911 dispatch bids

Four firms submit figures to replace a system that county says can’t handle call volume.

By Sherry Long slong@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

Four companies seeking to provide a new 911 dispatch system for Luzerne County submitted requests for proposals that were opened Wednesday morning in the Luzerne County Controller’s office.

Luzerne County officials want to replace the current Computer Aided Dispatch system, which is eight years old, and cannot handle the current volume of more than a 1,000 calls per day. The county hopes to add a Tier 1 system that could handle dispatching for several agencies, said Luzerne County 911 Data Manager/Technical Support Manager Fred Rosencrans.

The 911 Center currently dispatches for eight county departments, 11 FBI and state agencies, four state park ranger units, 82 fire departments, 53 ambulance stations, four aero-medical departments, 55 police departments and 10 other agencies.

The four companies submitting bids were Forge Public Safety Solutions of Lancaster, Pa; Tiburon of Pleasanton, Calif., Enforsys of Rosenland, N.J.; and Intergraph of Madison, Ala.

Enforsys’ bid was the lowest at $743,038, followed by Forge Public Safety Solutions for $1,283,271.47 and Tiburon, which bid $1,673,781. The highest bid was submitted by Intergraph for $1,741,623.

All the firms included the required 10 percent bond fee. If any company had neglected to submit a bond fee, its bid would have been disqualified.

“We don’t go by the lowest price because it is not always the best system. It will be on the best performance and fit for our system,” said Rosencrans.

A panel of representatives, including people from the county’s geographic information systems, informational technology and dispatchers from the 911 center, will review the bids to see which system accurately fits the county’s needs.

Company representatives will be invited to demonstrate their system and how it operates when dispatchers are receiving different types of calls. After receiving a customer list from the prospective firm, some panel members then travel to see the different systems operating in real time situations.

“I want to see it run. I want to talk to management from that county or state. I want to find out the faults. I want to find out what the problems are,” Rosencrans said.

The panel will then reconvene to review all the data and determine which company’s system would best serve the needs of the county.

The entire review process could take at least three months before county commissioners are advised which firm’s product would work best.

Sherry Long, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7159.

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