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In his near 20-year career with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office, Lt. Mark Pollard can still recall the early process of recording and keeping various records at the Weld County Jail.
“We had printers on spools, and you had to tear the perforations off on the paper,” he said, smiling as he mimicked the sounds the printers used to make in the early years of his career. “It’s what we had at the time, and it worked well, but what we have now is more web-based, more contemporary and more intuitive.”
The technology used to manage the day-to-day operations in the Weld County Jail has always evolved. The latest software suite — CentralSquare, which was rolled out in November of last year — has provided Pollard and the team of approximately 200 deputies and 100 staff members who access the jail management system (JMS) and records management system (RMS) daily with tools that help them continue to efficiently manage the activities of the jail, which houses approximately 600 individuals.
As Pollard brings up a dashboard featuring 12 different categories, the benefits of the new software become clear. Everything from an individual’s status and history can be reviewed and updated as well as important upcoming events, such as court dates, release dates and more. The dashboard can be customized by each individual deputy, allowing them to see a full roster of individuals in different housing units and to enter information quickly to ensure individuals in the jail are being cared for appropriately. This type of efficient care is not new to the jail, but the speed at which it can be done is a welcome addition.
“In the old system, I would have to go through multiple steps to get what I needed. Now, things like alerts on an individual are right in my face,” Pollard explained. “And the feedback from my deputies is, ‘this is really easy!’”
Aside from helping manage activities within the jail, another benefit to CentralSquare technology is how it assists deputies and booking staff record and store information. Weld County deputies, as well as law enforcement from Weld County municipalities with access to the RMS, can easily copy and paste information from an arrest report into a standard form within the system, enabling booking staff to not only quickly enter the information into the system but also retrieve it and update it more efficiently. Historically, once an arresting agency arrived at the jail, information in a report would have to be handwritten by a deputy, then given to booking personnel who would reenter the information.
Being able to easily transfer information into a standard form has been a notable efficiency.
“The uniformity of that form has been a huge benefit to our booking staff to make sure an arresting agency is capturing all the data we need,” said Lt. Matt Elbe, who works in records management. He also explained it lessened the risk of human error in the process.
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‘It’s redefined how we dispatch’
Laurie Pfeiler has seen a lot in her career with Weld County Public Safety Communications. Having first worked as a dispatcher before climbing the ladder to the department’s administrative team, she has seen the quality of Weld County’s 911 dispatching service continually gain national and international acclaim. In recent years, the Weld County Regional Communications Center has been named the nation’s top public safety answering point and just last year, it earned reaccreditation as an Accredited Center of Excellence for the third consecutive time by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch.
Even with all her experience and the changes she’s seen, the positive impact of CentralSquare on the department’s Computer-Aided Dispatch System (CAD) and level of service has stood out.
“It’s redefined how we dispatch,” said Pfeiler, who now serves as Deputy Director of the Weld County Department of Public Safety Communications. “Features like RapidSOS and Caller Location Query put data at our fingertips that (before the new software) would’ve probably taken more time to obtain or wouldn’t have been available. Location data is the most crucial piece of data we have in time sensitive, life-threatening situations, so the benefits of these features can’t be overstated.”
Pfeiler also said there has been a learning curve with the new CAD system. However, she explained the department’s commitment to providing the best 911 service possible has never wavered and the features of CentralSquare have offered an “elevated level of service to our citizens.”
Finding efficiencies while still adapting
Another critical entity in the county's public safety network is the Weld County Department of Justice Services, which facilitates pretrial services, community corrections and alternative sentencing programs, such as work release.
Director, Doug Erler, said while the software hasn’t changed how the department operates on a daily basis, the efficiencies it has brought to data management have been beneficial.
“The transition to CentralSquare has enabled our department to be more efficient in data entry, which allows us to more easily access and add information to our offender monitoring programs. With fewer steps involved, we can spend more time helping our programs evolve to be even more beneficial,” Erler said, before expressing excitement for greater efficiencies it could bring in the future. “While it isn’t perfect, the software suite allows us good flexibility to adapt; it’s customizable, and with each day we continue to create ways to do our important work.”
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An award-winning addition
Rolling out a beneficial solution that would enhance public safety functions across various departments and better serve residents of Weld County didn’t happen overnight. It was a long-standing vision of both the Weld County Board of Commissioners and the county’s Department of Information Technology (IT).
The process began in 2019 and involved continued collaboration and training with first responder agencies to select a new vendor and implement and learn the new features of the software. Over three years, continued training and collaboration allowed the new software suite to debut with no interruptions to public safety services.
The success of the overall project, and the more than 13,000 hours spent by IT to implement the new software also gained national recognition by being named one of the nation’s best public safety and IT projects by the National Association of Counties.
“So many county departments and partners played vital roles in the overall success of this project,” said Ryan Rose, Chief Information Officer of Weld County’s Department of IT and the Director of Finance and Administration. "Yes, it was provisioned as an IT project, but it really took the entire group of agencies to make it successful.”
The success of county IT projects is not new. The investment by the county in new technology has been continuous and is appreciated by individuals like Lts. Pollard and Elbe who rely on it every day to do their jobs better, and as a result, better serve residents.
“Our commitment to operational technology is top-level,” Pollard said, with Elbe expressing the value the Sheriff’s Office places on that technology.
“We pride ourselves on maximizing new tech features to their fullest potential,” he said.
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By Baker Geist, Weld County Communications Specialist
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