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Plano council hears police chief defend EDS vendor, agrees to gather more data before long-term commitment
Summary
After a detailed presentation by the police chief on a vendor-run off-duty assignment system, the Plano City Council agreed to collect more data and evaluate additional features before making a long-term procurement decision. The chief said roughly $1.3 million has been paid through the system to date.
The Plano City Council received an extended briefing on a third-party system the police department uses to manage off-duty assignments and directed staff to gather more data before making a long-term procurement commitment. Police Chief (speaker 5) said the system, provided by Extra Duty Solutions (EDS), has handled assignments since April and that the city began covering costs in January.
Chief (speaker 5) told the council the system resolved longstanding administrative problems, replacing paper-based signups and fragmented coordination. "All that's taken care of now," he said, and added the platform allows the department to track qualified assignments, on-duty hours and exhaustion risks. "So the total number of officers that have worked at, 587," the chief said, noting the department is authorized for 428 officers. "In total paid to officers so far out of this point about $1,300,000."
The chief said the vendor's fee is "7 and a half percent, actually, I think is what they're paying, potentially up to 8%." Council members pressed several operational and fiscal points: whether some longtime employers were "grandfathered," how one-time call-in cash payments would be handled, and whether the city should run a formal request for proposals (RFP) to test competitors.
A council member asked for clarity on "grandfathered employers." The chief replied those are prior long-term employer relationships that were given extra time to transition onto the new system. On cash payments, the chief said one-time call-in jobs (weddings, private events) sometimes result in cash payouts and that moving employers to a vendor-managed, non-cash system was an aim of the rollout.
Council members also questioned costs. One councilor summarized a figure cited in the briefing as "270,000 for 6 months, so it would be 540,000 annually going forward," and the chief confirmed the short-term figure. Several members urged an apples-to-apples procurement comparison, saying other vendors had claimed they could match services for lower fees.
The council and staff discussed an EDS on-duty feature that was offered with the off-duty package. Council direction was to pause implementation of any on-duty solution until the off-duty side was fully evaluated; several members asked staff to continue gathering data over the coming months and to pursue an RFP approach when appropriate.
The meeting produced no formal vote on a new contract; the council instead reached informal consensus to monitor the vendor's performance and return with more complete data, with some members suggesting a three-month observation window before taking further action.
