Schmidt To Address BD Council on Spillman

3/27/17 – Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt is confident that the final pieces of the Spillman puzzle will fall into place. His department is in the process of implementing a countywide records management system that would link 17 local municipal law enforcement agencies together. The sheriff told us on WBEV’s Community Comment that the city of Beaver Dam and the village of Theresa are the only two agencies that have not signed-on. Health issues of some village officials have slowed talks in that community but Schmidt says in Beaver Dam it may be about the message. He has a presentation planned before the full common council next Monday. Schmidt says teams work better together when they work together. He says Spillman is what former Sheriff Todd Nehls wanted with New World but we never got there; Schmidt says Spillman will “get us there” and will not fail like the New World conversion. “It is my guarantee to the citizens that we are going to make this work and its going to be a benefit for everybody at the end of the day,” Schmidt says.

 

Spillman would replace two computer systems that Beaver Dam is using right now, New World for squad cars and a Cisco system that manages department records at the police station. The software for Spillman will be free to each municipal department however those departments will each have to pay a yearly maintenance fee of $280-per computer beginning in 2019 and a one-time training fee of $720-per officer this year. For the Beaver Dam Police Department, that translates to $26-thousand dollars for its 37 officers plus $14-thousand annually for its 51-computers. City officials have indicated that is considerably higher than the $4300 total cost to be part of the failed New World computer system, which was put into place three years ago but has been plagued with issues. The city wants the extra money to come from the county’s half-percent sales tax but Schmidt says the payment structure is non-negotiable as the offer on the table for Beaver Dam has the same terms as the contracts signed by 15 other agencies. The sheriff says it comes down to public safety and the efficiency. Schmidt says additional crime will be solved because of the information sharing that will be going on that law enforcement simply does not have access to right now. Schmidt says Spillman is being build right now and the sooner police departments become part of the process the smoother the implementation will go.  Spillman is slated to go live, countywide on December 11.