FARMINGTON – Many of the local area police and fire department chiefs were at the Franklin County Courthouse Tuesday, to hear a presentation on a records system that some believe would allow for better communication between different agencies.
Fire, police, ambulance services and corrections officers use software and a linked computer system to submit, locate and share information. The speed with which they can access the information, and the ease with which they can share it with other agencies, can make enormous differences for public safety personnel. An officer at the meeting shared a story regarding a local robbery, in which a witness saw a red truck leave the scene. While mentioning the description to another officer, he learned the probable identity of the owner. If he hadn’t happened to mention the robbery, he believed the crime may have not been solved as quickly as it did.
The problem is, not all of the departments can search each others databases for red trucks. Farmington and Franklin County Sheriff’s Department are the last two departments in the state to use a computer program designed in 1992 by a couple of private individuals who have since retired. While officers can and do make requests for information from other departments, either directly or dispatch, such requests aren’t necessarily answered immediately, depending on how busy either department is.
The same goes for fire department personnel, who often need access to the same information filed by police, or EMTs. Jail information, regarding whose been booked where and whose been recently released, can also be important.
Four local departments, on the other hand, used far more modern software. Jay, Carrabassett Valley, Rangeley and the University of Maine at Farmington public safety office use a product created by Imc Solutions, a software firm. This lets them share information with everyone who utilizes Imc across the state, which comes in handy when seeking similar incidents or background information on a subject, according to Carrabassett Valley Police Department Chief Scott Nichols.
“Sometimes you can actually see a pattern of behavior for an individual,” Nichols said, adding that local departments already do a good job of sharing information mechanically. “Everyone in Franklin County shares information – it just depends on how easy it is.”
The presentation was made by dispatchers and IT specialists from Somerset County, which is entirely on Imc. They expressed interest in possibly collaborating with Franklin County to use some of the hardware they’ve already invested more than $1 million in, such as the servers that run the system.
The software itself is expensive; Somerset County’s buy-in was in the half a million dollar range, and the potential cost of switching to Imc for any local agencies remains unknown. The meeting Tuesday did precede the filing of a Homeland Security Grant, due mid-November. Previously, public safety officials have said that a variety of other, agency-specific grants could possibly come into play as well.
Commissioners, in attendance at the meeting, asked that Franklin County Emergency Management Agency Director Tim Hardy and other county officials to continue to study options and keep them apprised of any developments.
