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Alamance commissioners approve Hexagon emergency dispatch contract to replace aging 9‑1‑1 system
Summary
The Board approved a shared county‑city contract with Hexagon for a new computer‑aided dispatch (CAD) system after staff said federal grant funding and a $200,000 time‑limited discount made immediate approval advantageous.
The Alamance County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a contract with Hexagon for a new computer‑aided dispatch (CAD) system, a multi‑year implementation that county staff said will replace an end‑of‑life 9‑1‑1 product and provide a shared platform for county and municipal public‑safety agencies.
County staff described the procurement and implementation as the product of a multi‑year Request for Proposals (RFP) and interlocal planning process with the City of Burlington and municipal partners. The total software implementation cost, after a federal grant contribution, was described in staff comments as $5,500,000; the county share was stated as approximately $3.4 million and the city’s share as about $2.1 million. Staff said a federal grant of $963,000 would be applied to the project and that Hexagon offered a $200,000 discount if the contract were approved before the end of the fiscal year.
“We have to make sure that our vital systems are supported,” a county official said during the presentation, describing five rounds of contract revisions and payment milestones tied to defined deliverables. Staff described the Hexagon package as on‑premise software that serves data to users in the field and supports multiagency operations, which they said will improve information sharing between the county’s two public‑safety answering points (PSAPs), municipal partners and field responders.
Staff outlined a 24‑ to 30‑month implementation period that includes data conversion, hardware procurement and training. Stanley County, which implemented the same Hexagon product earlier in the state, was cited as a successful reference site whose dispatchers reported no return to the old system.
The contract discussion followed an earlier agenda amendment to add the item; commissioners debated the late arrival of contract documents but also voiced that the $200,000 discount was compelling. After a motion and second, the board voted unanimously to approve the contract. County staff said the county will seek installment‑loan financing for its share of the project and pursue additional grant funding where available.
Commissioners asked where the system would be installed; staff said the system is normally hosted on local servers within county facilities and can be moved to a new county facility when appropriate. The board directed staff to proceed with contract execution and implementation planning.
