REPORT TO THE CITY COUNCIL
FROM: BILLY ALCORN, Fire Chief
Fire Department
SUBJECT
Title
Approve the award of a cooperative purchase agreement with Locality Media, Inc. dba First Due for the purchase of a Records Management System (RMS) software license for a term of three years, for the total amount not to exceed $354,000.
Body
RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends Council approve the Cooperative Purchase Agreement with Locality Media, Inc. dba First Due for a Records Management System (RMS) software license for a term of three years, for the total amount not to exceed $354,000.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Fire Department uses a records management system to capture incident data to report to the National Fire Incident Reporting System, record occupancy and inspection information, and generate invoices for billing inspections. The systems in place, Tiburon and Emergency Reporting, were outdated and no longer being supported. Newer platforms to meet the fundamental needs of the department were demonstrated and First Due was determined to be the best fit. The agreement is a piggyback on the City of Santa Monica as they were found to be very similar to Fresno.
BACKGROUND
In late 2021, the department experienced significant failure of the fire prevention software being used when the invoicing export supported by Emergency Reporting was terminated. In addition, the department was missing out on capturing valuable data information on our incident reports because the fields to capture the information did not exist. The need to move to a new platform to replace both Emergency Reporting and Tiburon became a high priority.
Between October 2021 and November 2022, the functionalities of a new platform were evaluated, and companies were contacted for demonstrations. The foundational needs were occupancy management (to include inspection and invoicing), pre-incident planning, and incident reporting. Based on these needs, First Due and ESO were recommended as the top-rated Fire RMS systems by other agencies throughout California and the U.S. In addition to these two companies, the Fire Department also reached out to Streamline and FlowMSP for demonstrations.
The result of the demonstrations was that Streamline and FlowMSP do not support the incident reporting need. Incident reporting is a requirement of the National Fire Incident Report System and therefore an absolute need in the new platform chosen. ESO was unable to provide a demonstration despite numerous communications to get one scheduled. First Due not only is able to meet all the needs identified, but in addition, they are able to also provide a community engagement module and a mobile responder module that the department is looking towards potentially replacing or integrating with our current Tablet Command software in the future.
The department was able to determine that the City of Santa Monica had recently performed a bidding process for a new Records Management System which resulting in an award to First Due. It was also determined that the scope of work requirements of Santa Monica were similar to those of Fresno.
ENVIRONMENTAL FINDINGS
By the definition provided in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Section 15378, the award of this contract does not qualify as a project as defined by CEQA.
LOCAL PREFERENCE
Local preference was not implemented, the City is using a cooperative purchase agreement to purchase this software license.
FISCAL IMPACT
The FY 2025 budget included $109,000 in the general fund for a Records Management System. There will be an unbudgeted additional cost of $4,360 for FY 2025 that will be absorbed by the Fire Department. The remainder of the agreement will be part of general fund requests each budget year for FY 2026 and FY 2027.
Below are the Fire Department’s estimates for the budgetary needs in the respective fiscal years.
o FY 2026 = $117,894.40
o FY 2027 = $122,610.18
Attachment: Cooperative Purchase Agreement with Locality Media, Inc. dba First Due