Waukesha City IT board approves Central Square CAD contract, forwards to City Council

The Waukesha City Information Technology Board unanimously approved a contract with Central Square on June 4 to purchase an enterprise computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system and forwarded the contract to the City Council for final approval at its June 17 meeting.

The board approved the contract after more than a year and a half of procurement work that included a coordinated request for proposals, scripted vendor demonstrations and evaluation by police, fire, dispatch and IT staff. Chris (IT staff) said the procurement process and contract negotiations were lengthy: “this is a year and a half in the making to get to this point.” Tom Murrell, vice president of Windborne Consulting, said the project attracted multiple bidders: “we had 6 vendors respond.”

Why it matters: The purchase is part of a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) project approved in 2022 and budgeted at roughly $3,000,000. City staff said the upgrade is intended to replace the city’s existing Phoenix CAD—installed about 2008—which staff described as outmoded and a contributing factor in documented operational failures during a prior major fire. The board’s vote clears the way for the contract to go to the Common Council on June 17.

Key contract and technical details - Vendor and scope: The contract covers the Central Square enterprise CAD software and related implementation services. The law-enforcement records management system (RMS) selection is Axon; staff indicated the Axon RMS will be handled separately and is expected back before the board in July. - On-premises deployment and infrastructure: Staff said the CAD deployment is primarily on-premises and will run on the city’s Nutanix virtual environment. The production architecture described includes 14 production servers, 6 for testing and 6 for training; disaster-recovery architecture uses a near-sync mode with a stated recovery point objective between about 1 and 15 minutes. - Interfaces: The CAD package includes roughly 16 standard interfaces to other systems (for example, fire station alerting, ePCR patient-care systems, body-worn and dash cameras, and state reporting systems such as NIFRS and NIBRS). Staff emphasized these are Central Square’s standard, noncustom interfaces. - County CAD-to-CAD: The contract as submitted includes an option for CAD-to-CAD integration with the county’s dispatch system, but staff said that portion requires the county’s agreement and may be delayed or removed from the city’s purchase if the county cannot commit in the near term. If the county participates, it would cover some of that interface cost.

Costs, recurring fees and funding - Project budget: The CIP entry for the project was approximately $3,000,000. Staff said a federal grant of $1,000,000 was awarded specifically for this CAD/RMS project and will offset part of the budget; the grant must be spent by March (year not specified in the board discussion). - Hardware: Staff said expanding the Nutanix environment to host the new CAD will increase compute capacity and that server-related costs for that expansion are about $211,000. - License and recurring costs: Staff estimated Central Square recurring costs will be roughly $110,000 higher per year than the current Phoenix maintenance. The Axon RMS subscription was described as roughly $60,000 per year and is locked for 10 years; Central Square pricing was described as locked through year five, then escalating 3% annually through year eight and 5% thereafter. - Upfront payment: The contract requires an upfront payment of 20% of the contract amount at signing; staff said that equates to roughly a hundred thousand dollars (reported in the meeting as “hundred grand, basically”), and annual subscription fees are due at delivery. - Cloud option: Staff reported a cloud-hosted Central Square option was priced about $100,000 more per year plus roughly $200,000 extra in first-year implementation costs; staff recommended on-premises hosting for budgetary reasons and for control of the environment.

Implementation timeline and operations - Staff estimated an 18–24 month implementation timeline after the project team is assigned. The city plans to coordinate cutovers so police and fire move to the new systems together; staff said Phoenix cannot accept the full CAD data payload from Central Square, which complicates staged cutovers and may require a single cutover event for dispatch operations. - Training and availability: Central Square will provide training environments; staff said the vendor resolved an earlier limitation and that training will be available beyond standard daytime hours so 24/7 public-safety staffing can participate.

Board action and next steps The board’s motion approved the contract with Central Square for the enterprise CAD mobile system with the GIS consulting line item removed from the price and with all exhibits finalized. The motion was seconded. A roll-call vote recorded unanimous approval by board members present; the board noted the contract will be presented to the Common Council at its June 17 meeting for final approval. Staff said the Axon RMS contract is expected to return to the board on July 2 and that the Axon master service agreement aligns with other city agreements for body-worn cameras and tasers.

Quotes “this is a year and a half in the making to get to this point,” Chris (IT staff) said of the procurement and contract negotiations. “We had 6 vendors respond,” Tom Murrell, vice president of Windborne Consulting, said describing the RFP response and evaluation process.

What remains unsettled - County participation in the CAD-to-CAD interface requires county agreement and may be deferred; the city will not pay for functionality it cannot use immediately. - Final Axon RMS pricing and the separate SOW for Axon remained under review; staff indicated Axon will be considered at the July meeting.

The board adjourned after finalizing the vote; staff will place the Central Square contract on the Common Council agenda for review on June 17.