The Mission-Critical Resource Center

In Summary:

• Butler County, PA's existing public safety land mobile radio system was facing end-of-life and had begun to experience reduced reliability.

• They County worked with MCP to develop a road-map that would replace the system with one that would meet their future needs.

• MCP provided a detailed assessment and implementation support and eventually, helped Butler County realize 43 percent cost-savings and long-term maintenance savings.

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"MCP has played a key role in helping us meet our project goals by managing multiple vendors on our behalf—holding them accountable for meeting project milestones, managing project risks and ensuring that they meet schedule deadlines and requirements."

Steve Bicehouse, director, Butler County, Butler County

Overview and Agency Challenge

Located 20 miles north of Pittsburgh, PA, Butler County serves nearly 200,000 people across 800 square miles. Their existing radio system was facing the need for end-of-life support and had begun to experience reduced reliability. The ten-site, eight channel system operated in a frequency band that had be reallocated by the Federal Communications Commission as mandated within the Middle-Class Tax Relief Act of 2012.

In Summary:

• Lee County, Florida 911 officials were not satisfied with the network maintenance they were received from their technology vendors
• MCP provides ongoing IT support for Lee County via an online dashboard that is intended to provide a real-time network diagram and information on active alarms and ticket status, as well as reporting capabilities.

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Overview and Agency Challenge

Maintaining network up time during large-scale disasters like Hurricane Irma and during normal operations was top of mind for Lee County, Florida officials. Despite several 911 vendors providing 911 network monitoring services, Lee County officials weren’t satisfied with the level of service they were receiving. They sought greater clarity on network activity, more customization (instead of an off-the-shelf solution), and a mechanism for identifying current and historic network activities.

In Summary:

• The San Francisco Department of Emergency Management sought a robust, modern call-handling solution and needed guidance defining requirements, as well as during the procurement and implementation process.

• In 2017, they hired Mission Critical Partners to help them build requirements, and to support the agency's implementation efforts.

• The new call-handling solution has played a role helping 911 call-answering times improve.

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"MCP's guidance during the procurement stage was invaluable. Their familiarity working with 911 call-handling system vendors and their knowledge of the newest technology and vendors available played an essential role helping us feel more comfortable with the requirements-gathering and RFP process."

Jun Chen, PMO Manager, City and County of San Francisco

Overview and Agency Challenge

The city of San Franscisco Department of Emergency Management (DEM) sought a robust, modern call-handling system that would support its 42 call-taking positions. A second requirement was a path to a National Emergency Number Association (NENA) i3-compliant system and meeting public safety standards for performance and reliability. They looked for a partner that could provide guidance defining requirements, as well as during the procurement and implementation process.

In Summary:

• Imperial County, CA is served by four public safety answering points (PSAPs) that provide call-taking and dispatching services for the Imperial Valley.
• In 2017, they hired Mission Critical Partners to help them determine if physical regionalization made sense.
• MCP provided a comprehensive feasibility study that made a recommendation to transition its four PSAPs into two mutually supporting PSAPs.

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"With MCP's help, we've identified the issues and challenges that stand between us and a successful regionalization effort. Now that we know it could work for us, we need to determine how to make it a reality and execute on that plan."

Mark Schmidt, Emergency Communications Project Coordinator, Imperial County Communication Authority, Imperial County, California

Overview and Agency Challenge

Imperial Valley, California, is served by four public safety answering points (PSAPs) that provide call-taking and dispatching services for the Imperial Valley. The Imperial Valley Communications Authority (IVECA), in conjunction with the San Diego County Regional Communications System , provides public safety voice and data communications to more than 200 local, state and federal agencies in San Diego and Imperial counties.

The County’s PSAPs were already sharing technology resources, but wanted to figure out if sharing services also made sense in terms of staffing and maintenance costs.

In Summary:

• Cobb County, Georgia public safety officials wanted to assure they were paying a fair price for support of their land mobile radio (LMR) system.

• Working alongside MCP, they completed a fair market pricing assessment and data-driven analysis for the LMR system maintenance costs.

• Armed with this information, the partnership was able to negotiate more favorable cost targets, enhanced system performance reports and significant savings on costs.

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Overview and Agency Challenge

Looking to lower expenses without sacrificing support, Cobb County, Georgia, began exploring the possibilities of renegotiating their Project 25 (P25) land mobile radio system maintenance agreement with the vendor. They wanted to better understand the services, terms and conditions, and the associated costs included with the maintenance contract. With limited knowledge of how their fees compared to similar-sized systems in the public safety sector, they sought assurance they were paying a fair price for the support provided.