Commissioners approve Flock Safety camera subscription; staff to confirm funding term and ongoing budget

Chambers County Commissioners voted to approve the sheriff's request to contract for Flock Safety camera services using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.

The sheriff (speaker 13) described recent enforcement successes tied to Flock cameras and said the system enables the county to pull data from cameras in neighboring jurisdictions to assemble crime leads: "If you're a Flock team member... we get to pull all the data from the Flock cameras in Baytown, Pasadena, Humble," the sheriff said. He also described patterns of stolen vehicles and techniques criminals use to defeat vehicle identification systems.

The sheriff emphasized internal audit controls to limit who can access the system and said the system is used strictly for crime solving. "We audit the system... We don't let just every person in the sheriff's office or anybody outside of our world into the system," the sheriff said.

Transcript references to contract figures were inconsistent in the packet. Commissioners approved the request but asked staff to confirm the exact dollar amounts and whether the subscription is a multi‑year commitment that will require future budgets to pick up recurring costs. Staff said some costs for the current term are covered and that future-year budgeting would be necessary.

Next steps: staff to confirm the final contract term, the amount to come from ARPA or sheriff funds, and include any recurring subscription cost in future budget forecasts.