DuPage County committee hears RFP needs-assessment; consultant recommends ‘best-of-breed’ RMS approach

The DuPage County RMS/CAD Oversight Committee received an update on the procurement needs-assessment from consultant Mike Galvin of Delta Works, who said the review of system users and requirements is nearly complete and that the next step is aligning steering committees before issuing an RFP.

Galvin said the needs-assessment focused on outreach across the county’s CAD, mobile records and field-reporting users and that the consulting team interviewed chiefs, PSAP managers, line staff and patrol personnel to identify shortcomings of the current records management solution. "We are running to the conclusion of the phase 1, the needs assessment," Galvin said.

The consultant summarized four early findings, saying agencies reported "overwhelming dissatisfaction with RMS as a whole," with repeated complaints about the field-based reporting (FBR) component and data issues such as NIBRS inaccuracies. He told the committee the group’s recommendation is to prioritize core RMS capabilities — incident and report-writing functions — before administrative modules, and to consider a best-of-breed approach rather than forcing CAD and RMS into a single vendor solution.

"Now, it seems like there's more of a focus on Let's focus on the core functionality," Galvin said. "Secondarily to that, let's really focus on a best of breed as opposed to a single provider." He also emphasized vendor training and post-implementation education as critical for realizing system value.

On timing, Galvin said the team expects to deliver a final presentation to project steering committees first, then to the oversight committee. Assuming committee alignment, he estimated about two months to get an RFP ready for release and said a realistic bid period on the street would be roughly two to three months, followed by a multi-month evaluation and then one to three months of negotiations. "So ideally, you're probably talking by the end of the year you get to this conclusion of phase 3, and then you enter into negotiations," he said.

Committee members and staff discussed participation rates and outreach: the committee was told the county has 31 agencies in the consortium and that past procurements saw much lower engagement (the prior RFP had 13 participating jurisdictions). Staff asked managers to encourage chiefs and line users to participate in steering and evaluation committees.

No formal procurement decision was made at this meeting. Staff said they will form steering committees and schedule workshops to finalize requirements and alignment before the RFP is released.

Ending: Committee members said they expect more frequent steering-committee meetings while the needs-assessment is closed out and the RFP is drafted. Staff and consultants will return with a more detailed presentation to the oversight committee and to the ETSB-related stakeholders before issuing the RFP.