Waukesha IT board approves Central Square contract for new CAD system

The Waukesha City Information Technology Board voted unanimously June 4 to approve a contract with Central Square for an enterprise computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system and related mobile components, with the board instructing staff to remove a GIS consulting line from the vendor pricing before the contract goes to the Common Council on June 17.

The contract is part of a project approved in the city's 2023 capital improvement plan (CIP). Chris (project point of contact, IT staff) said the overall CIP budget for the CAD/RMS project began at $3,000,000 and that the city has received a $1,000,000 federal grant dedicated to this project. Chris also described the implementation as an 18-to-24-month effort and said the purchase requires additional server capacity and other infrastructure work.

Tom Moreau, vice president of Windborne Consulting, described the vendor selection process that led to Central Square for CAD and Axon for the records-management system. "We had six vendors respond," Moreau said, and the team conducted written evaluations followed by multi-day scripted demonstrations to produce the final recommendation. Moreau added that Central Square's enterprise CAD is a commercially available, off-the-shelf system the firm has implemented for multiple agencies.

Why it matters: the board and staff emphasized operational and public-safety improvements from standard interfaces between CAD and systems such as fire station alerting, body-worn camera systems, mobile data computers in patrol cars, and records management and patient-care reporting. "These interfaces are workforce multipliers," Moreau said, explaining that call and location data move automatically into partner systems so responders do not have to retype information.

Costs and technical details: staff said the project will increase on-premises virtual servers from five to 26 (14 production, six testing, six training). City staff identified an additional hardware cost of $211,000 to support the new environment. Recurring annual licensing for the Central Square system was described as roughly $110,000 more per year than the city pays for its current system (Phoenix). Axon (records management) is expected to add roughly $60,000 per year; staff noted Axon has locked its price for 10 years. Central Square's support pricing is locked for five years, with a 3% annual increase in years six through eight and 5% thereafter. Staff also described a cloud option priced at about $100,000 more per year and roughly $200,000 in higher year‑one implementation costs compared with the on-premises option.

The board discussed a CAD-to-CAD interface with Waukesha County that would allow call data to transfer automatically when a 911 call hits county infrastructure outside the city's radio/tower footprint. Chris cautioned that the county must agree to participate and that county budgeting could delay that portion of work by a year or more; staff said the contract currently includes the county interface but the city could remove it from pricing if the county cannot commit.

Operations and schedule: Chris said staff plan a single coordinated cutover for CAD and records systems rather than running parallel systems for an extended period. "This is an 18 to 24 month project," Chris said. Staff also said they will train on the system before production and that Central Square provides CJIS-approved remote access controls and session recording for vendor support.

Next steps and votes: The board approved a motion to accept the Central Square CAD Mobile Enterprise contract as discussed, with the GIS consulting line removed. The motion was seconded by "Mr. Broders" in the meeting transcript. A roll call recorded unanimous approval; the item will be presented to the Common Council on June 17 for further action. Staff said the Axon records-management contract will be the next major item and is expected to be discussed before or at the board's July meeting.

The board recording and documents show the selection followed a multi-stage RFP process that began with a 2022 CIP allocation and included in-person, scripted product demonstrations. Staff said their vendor evaluation prioritized standard (non-custom) interfaces to limit upgrade issues in future releases.

Votes at a glance: The Information Technology Board approved the Central Square CAD Mobile Enterprise contract (agenda item 25-0095) by unanimous vote and will forward the contract to Common Council on June 17 for final approval.