Consideration and Approval of Contract: Cooperative Purchase Contract with Versaterm Public Safety Inc., using City of Mesa Contract/RFP No. 2017190, for a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS) Software as a Service solution for the Flagstaff Police Department, Flagstaff Fire Department, and regional partner agencies, in an amount not to exceed $1,232,977 for one-time implementation and $829,629 plus applicable sales taxes annually thereafter.
 

1. Approve the Cooperative Purchase Contract with Versaterm Public Safety Inc., using City of Mesa Contract/RFP No. 2017190, for a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS) Software as a Service solution for the Flagstaff Police Department, Flagstaff Fire Department, and regional partner agencies, in an amount not to exceed $1,232,977 for one-time implementation services and $829,629 annually thereafter for subscription fees, with annual subscription price increases capped at 5%; and
2. Authorize the City Manager to execute all necessary documents.

The Flagstaff Police Department and Flagstaff Fire Department currently rely on a Hexagon Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS) to receive and dispatch 911 calls for service and to document, store, and manage law enforcement and fire/EMS incident, arrest, and case records. The platform operates as a shared regional system serving both City departments and regional partner agencies, including the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, Northern Arizona University Police Department, Flagstaff Airport Emergency Services, Summit Fire and Medical District, Highlands Fire District, Blueridge Fire District, Forest Lakes Fire District, Pinewood Fire Department, Terros Health, and Solari Crisis and Human Services, supporting 396 CAD/Mobile Authorized Users and 218 RMS/Mobile Authorized Users. The Hexagon system is a legacy platform, and its replacement is part of the City's Application Modernization initiative.

This Agreement is limited to that dispatch and records functionality. It does not include automated license plate recognition (ALPR) technology, and it does not authorize or establish any new data sharing arrangements. The system replaces existing functionality and does not expand the categories of data the City collects.

The current system is an on-premises deployment that the City hosts and maintains directly. Public safety vendors industry-wide are shifting development and support toward cloud platforms, and agencies remaining on legacy architecture face a slower pace of capability improvement over time. Replacement also positions the region for next-generation 911 capability and improved interoperability among participating agencies. Deferring the transition does not avoid it, and cost and complexity increase the longer it is postponed.

Prior to selection, the platform underwent a rigorous security and compliance review by the City's Information Security team, including evaluation of the vendor's CJIS compliance, data encryption and access controls, hosting environment, and incident response obligations, and has been approved for use. As a cloud-hosted solution, it provides continuous vendor-managed security updates, contractually defined incident response and breach notification obligations, independently audited security controls, redundancy, and uptime commitments that the current on-premises architecture was not designed to deliver, strengthening the City's overall security posture.

An evaluation committee representing Police, Fire, Information Technology, and regional partner agencies scored proposals on functional fit, security posture, interoperability, implementation approach, references, and total cost of ownership. Versaterm ranked highest. Versaterm serves agencies nationally, including the Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, and Phoenix police departments, and the proposed solution covers the City and all partner agencies under a single agreement. The City is the sole contracting party. Partner agency participation is governed by separate intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) between the City and each agency.

Project Name: Versaterm CAD/RMS Implementation
Cost: $1,232,977 one-time (implementation) and $829,629 annually (initial subscription), for a total of $2,062,606 in year one plus applicable taxes, with subsequent annual subscription increases capped at 5%.  The total cost is shared with Coconino County Sheriff's Office and Northern Arizona University.
Account Number Budgeted: 001-01-014-0047-1-4231
FY Budgeted Amount: $3,644,502 for Software Modernization. Police Department's ongoing budget is insufficient to cover the annual $829,629 needed for this contract.  Additional funding or a reallocation of budget will be required in the FY2026-27 and FY2027-28 budgets.
Grant Funded: No
Funding Source: General Fund

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1. Approve the Cooperative Purchase Contract with Versaterm Public Safety Inc., using City of Mesa Contract/RFP No. 2017190, in an amount not to exceed $1,232,977 for implementation and $829,629 annually thereafter, for a CAD/RMS Software as a Service solution for the Flagstaff Police Department, Flagstaff Fire Department, and regional partner agencies; or
2. Do not approve; the City continues on its current Hexagon CAD/RMS system, a legacy platform that poses increased risk to public safety operations, employee retention, information security, and customer service response times.

The City of Flagstaff has operated its Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System (RMS) on the Hexagon (formerly Intergraph) Safety and Infrastructure platform for over 20 years. The system serves the Flagstaff Police Department, Flagstaff Fire Department, and 10 regional partner agencies.

The current environment is an on-premises deployment. The City owns, hosts, patches, and maintains the underlying servers, database, and supporting infrastructure, and dedicates a meaningful share of Information Technology staff capacity to sustaining the platform. Version upgrades are infrequent, as each one requires substantial cost, project effort, and coordinated downtime across all participating agencies. As a result, the City has limited access to new capabilities and modern features.

Several conditions have converged to bring this system to a natural decision point:

• The on-premises architecture is reaching the end of its life cycle. Public safety software vendors industry-wide, including the City's current provider, are shifting development investment, support resources, and new capabilities toward cloud-delivered platforms. Agencies that remain on legacy on-premises architecture can expect a slower pace of improvement and a narrowing support path over time. Continuing to invest in the City's existing environment defers rather than avoids this transition, and the cost and complexity of migration generally increase the longer it is postponed.
• The system predates the City's current technology strategy. City Executive Leadership has supported a strategic direction toward cloud-hosted, vendor-maintained systems that reduce the City's infrastructure footprint, shorten update cycles, strengthen disaster recovery posture, and redirect internal IT capacity from server maintenance toward service delivery. CAD and RMS are among the remaining mission-critical systems on legacy on-premises infrastructure.
• Total cost of ownership extends beyond vendor software maintenance. In addition to annual maintenance, which has risen steadily over the life of the agreement, the City carries hardware refresh cycles, database licensing, disaster recovery infrastructure, and internal staff time. These costs are distributed across several budget areas.
• Operational experience has informed the timing. Over the life of the current deployment, the City has accumulated a backlog of enhancement and configuration requests that remain unaddressed, and support cases affecting daily operations have frequently required extended time to resolve. Staff have developed workarounds and manual processes to compensate. These are the ordinary consequences of a maturing on-premises system, but they are also a reasonable signal that the platform is no longer the best fit for the City's operational needs.
• Regional interoperability and Next-Generation 911 (NG911) readiness. Public safety operations increasingly depend on NG911 capability, including text and multimedia intake. Meeting these requirements on the current platform would require significant additional investment in an architecture the City intends to move away from.

Following a competitive evaluation, an evaluation committee comprising representatives from Police, Fire, Information Technology, and regional partner agencies scored proposals against functional fit, cloud architecture and security posture, interoperability, implementation approach, references from comparable agencies, and total cost of ownership.

The City's current vendor offers a cloud-delivered product, which was evaluated. The committee determined that it represented a migration of the existing application to a hosted environment rather than a modernization of the underlying platform, and that it would not resolve the functional and capability limitations described above.

Versaterm was selected as the highest-ranked proposal. Versaterm is an established public safety vendor serving agencies nationally, including Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, and Phoenix in Arizona. The proposed solution is a cloud-hosted, CJIS-compliant platform delivering CAD, RMS, and mobile capability to the City and its regional partner agencies under a single agreement.

Procurement Notes: 

• Does Mesa contract requirements for free and open competition? YES
• Is it currently in force? YES
• Does it have cooperative language (is it able to be piggybacked on)? YES
• Does the Scope of Work (SOW) apply to the project?  YES. The original Mesa contract was specific to RMS (and excluded CAD), with CAD being added in Amendment 1.

• Safe and Healthy Community: Provide high-quality law enforcement and fire/EMS dispatch and records services by equipping the Flagstaff Police Department, Flagstaff Fire Department, and regional public safety partners with a modern, reliable Computer-Aided Dispatch and Records Management System.
• High Performing Governance: Maintain the organization's technology infrastructure and fiscal stability by replacing a legacy system through the City's Application Modernization initiative and by using an existing, competitively bid cooperative contract rather than duplicating a formal solicitation.

• Goal PF.3. Provide high-quality emergency response and public safety services including law enforcement, fire, medical, and ambulance transport service.

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Application Modernization