AG 2007 05 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Cabarrus County Fire Marshal May I, 2007 To: John Day, County Manager BOC From: Bobby Smith, EM Director Todd Shanley,ITS Manager Subj: Budget Amendment The Cabarrus County Fire Marshal's office has a requirement for reporting all facts relating to the cause and origin of the fire to the North Cazolina Attorney General. This requirement is based on the NC General Statute 58- 79-1. Additionally, NC General Statute 58-79.45 requires that the fire department shall forward the fire reports to the fire marshal of the county in which the fire occurred. The statute also requires that whenever a fire department responds to a fire, the chief of the department shall complete or cause to be completed a fire incident report on a form prescribed by the Department of Insurance. In 2006, the Volunteer Fire Departments (VFDs) in Cabarrus County were dispatched to 4179 incidents. The Fire Marshal's office only received 3152 reports from the VFDs. A proposed solution for this problem is to combine the software and databases utilized to report fire incidents into one report database. This will allow the VFDs to access a centralized database via a web interface through a secure connection. Each of the VFDs currently maintains their own intemet connections and PC hardware eliminating any reoccuning hazdware or network costs to Cabarrus County. This centralized database will have the ability to link to the Cabarrus County Sheriff Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) database. The link between the CAD and the fire reporting software will reduce data entry and improve data quality. This configuration will also increase the ability of the VFDs to become mobile in the future allowing reports to be completed on scene. This project will also allow data sharing to become a bidirectional process. The Fire Marshal's office will have the ability to shaze fire inspection data down to the VFDs. The goal of this project will be to improve the quality of the reports, to increase the number reports submitted and reduce the man hours required for the Fire Marshal's office to receive and review reports from the VFDs in Cabarrus County. The technical aspect of this project will be to utilize a single database that will allow the Cabarrus County VFDs to access to the database via a wide area network. The quality of the reports will be improved by centralizing the quality parameter around the required fields. The number of reports would be improved by linking the reporting database to the dispatch database. This link will also improve the quality of the reports due to the fact that important fields will be imported rather than reentered. This feature will also save man hours in the preparation of the reports. Additionally, a centralized database managed by Cabarrus County ITS will reduce resources VFDs spend maintaining an application and computer systems not allowing them to concentrate their funding on fire protection of county citizens. In last year's budget the BOC approved $450,000 in the Emergency Management Budget to provide $30,000 staffing grants to eligible fire departments to provide day-time staffing in the local fire departments. As part of the grant agreement, these positions had to meet specific criteria and policies had to be in place for the departments to govern the use of these funds as approved by the County. Several departments had to develop these policies and put procedures in place before they could start receiving the monthly payment for the grant, and thus were not able to start the program in July of last year. Many departrnents did not star[ the program until December 2006 and January 2007, leaving a surplus in the staffing grant budget. Due to the staggered start-ups by the various departments, we estimate there will be approximately $190,000 left in that account on June 30, 2007. Whereas these monies were approved for support of our fire service partners, we aze asking the BOC to consider allotting monies from this surplus to be used for the fire service reporting system project proposed. We are requesting transfer of $130,000 from this account to our technology account to be used to purchase the proposed system. Cabarrus County . 65 Church Slreet, SE.. PO Box 707. Conwrd, NC 28026 S`{itJ1711 Phone:704.920.2143 Fax: www cabarruscounN.us n„p,yr,r,y~,~x,~'7 -xoarx caxouxn F- i o