Eric Colwell, the county chief information officer, told commissioners the county’s top FY26 capital request is a 9-1-1 computer-aided dispatch (CAD) upgrade managed by the city of Bridal, which owns the CAD software and runs it in the city’s data center. Colwell said the city will cover 60 percent of the upgrade cost and the county’s request is to cover the remaining 40 percent.

“The city of Bridal actually owns the 9-1-1 system… they own the software, this CAD software. It is running in their data center,” Colwell said, adding Bryan’s communications district also uses that software for dispatching. He said the current CAD has been in service for decades and the vendor will continue support but not further development.

Colwell said the county’s second request is for a cloud-based log-management utility to aggregate system logs, aid analysis and meet FBI CJIS provisions for tracking, auditing and retention; the ask was $29,500. He described the tool as necessary to improve security and compliance.

The third request is for an automated testing solution (OpKey) to help IT test quarterly Oracle updates and configuration changes before they reach production. Colwell said the testing tool will allow staff to build and run scripts to detect functionality changes introduced by vendor updates and prevent breakages in production systems.

Colwell said materials were provided in a packet to the commissioners and that his team brought staff to answer technical questions. Commissioners raised no formal objections during the workshop, and Colwell said the CAD vendor has signaled it will stop developing the older system, increasing the urgency of an upgrade. No formal vote occurred.

Colwell also noted one previously submitted IT project—parking garage gate switchover to badge access—has been withdrawn because the Brazos Transit District identified a new gate-arm system that uses license-plate readers and does not require integration with the county’s ID badges.