Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

On Tuesday, the Troup County Board of Commissioners voted to approve an intergovernmental agreement with the City of LaGrange that will allow the county and city to upgrade their emergency records and dispatch software.

The software will be paid for using state technology grant funds earmarked for combatting crime. The grant was awarded to the county and city previously this year. The grant funds will completely pay for the software, but ongoing maintenance will be the responsibility of LaGrange and Troup County, hence the intergovernmental agreement.

The funds will be used to replace the outdated Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system and Records Management System (RMS) that LPD, the sheriff’s office and Troup 911 currently use.

“With our current software PTS, we have major issues,” said Troup 911 Director Shannon McLaughlin.

“It’s not just 911.  It’s the police department, the sheriff’s office and the jail that have issues. We need this. We constantly go down when our current CAD system freezes.”

IT Manager Jason Cadenhead said that each of the public safety departments collectively reviewed three different systems and unanimously decided to use a system from Tyler Solutions.

The funds from the grant will pay for the new system and maintenance for the first year, but the county and city will be responsible afterwards.

“We’ve got the capital outlays covered through for the first year. The maintenance comes up  15 months after contract signing, and that’s mainly what this agreement covers,” Cadenhead said.

Cadenhead said the software will increase the efficiency of 911 call-taking, which will be assisted by AI.

“It takes a lot of the human error out as far as initial call taking. Then it goes all the way through the system as we have now to provide much more analytical data as far as targeting violent crime,” Cadenhead said.

“The system is pretty wide and pretty broad. So certainly there are a lot of opportunities for growth. Unlike our current system, we have now we just really have maxed out its capabilities. We’re the only user of PTS in Georgia,” County Manager Eric Mosley said.

McLaughlin said the total grant award was $1.6 million. The system costs $1.4 million, so the remaining funds will be used to purchase additional hardware.

Mosley said Tyler Solutions offers quite a few software systems, including court services modules. The company currently provides human resources software that the county uses.