Johnson County accepts Soma Global CAD/RMS go‑live, approves final ARPA milestone payment
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Summary
After a weeks‑long rollout and performance troubleshooting, commissioners approved the go‑live acceptance and a $222,068.75 ARPA payment to complete phase‑one implementation of the countywide Selma/Soma public‑safety system.
Johnson County Commissioners on Monday approved a go‑live acceptance form for the countywide Selma/Soma computer‑aided dispatch and records‑management system and authorized a final implementation milestone payment of $222,068.75 to Vertasoft LLC to be paid from previously allocated American Rescue Plan Act funds.
County IT staff, representatives from Soma (the vendor) and Totoverde (a partner integrator), and municipal agency personnel briefed the court on a phased rollout that put dispatch, mobile and records functions into daily use in mid‑August. Commissioners heard that the system is now live with all participating agencies but that teams continue to work on performance, mobile connectivity, and data‑sharing configurations.
Cameron George, the county IT project lead on the rollout, told the court the county is addressing intermittent cellular coverage that affects some patrol units and is pursuing options such as multi‑SIM solutions and other network improvements. County officials also said they are coordinating new data‑sharing agreements so municipal agencies and the sheriff’s office can define what information is visible between jurisdictions.
Soma Global representative Carrie Wolgemuth said the company staged engineers on‑site at go‑live and has pushed a schedule of software releases and hot fixes to resolve user‑reported issues. Soma and county IT described a short release cadence through September and planned fixes into October to address reporting, mobile performance and several user interface items.
The court heard that some legacy data — including evidence/property records for agencies that signed agreements and provided users — has been migrated to the cloud case environment and that work remains to map and migrate records for other agencies. County staff said property and evidence migration for the city of Cleburne was near completion and that similar work for the sheriff’s office would follow the same script.
After the briefing, Commissioner Bailey moved and Commissioner Howell seconded a motion to approve the go‑live acceptance and authorize the $222,068.75 payment to Vertasoft LLC from ARPA funds. The motion passed unanimously.
Why this matters: The project replaces older, on‑premises systems and aims to centralize dispatch and records for county and municipal first‑responder agencies. County officials said the cloud rollout should speed evidence and discovery exchange, reduce manual copying and improve officer safety, but it requires additional connectivity and configuration work to reach full functionality.
What’s next: County IT and Soma will continue iterative releases, finalize evidence and property data migrations, complete additional integrations in planned phase‑two work (including Tyler integrations and citation/booking interfaces) and formalize data‑sharing agreements with participating agencies.
