Santa Clara County Grand Jury • 2004-2005

2004-2005 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury Report Calling 9-1-1: Managing Information Technologies in the Santa

Published: June 07, 2005 23 pages

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Findings and Recommendations 4 findings

Until the end of 2004, the County Communications Department’s 9-1-1 information technology infrastructure relied on hardware and software already obsolete in the late 1990s. The upgrade of the Computer-Aided Public Safety System, in the planning stages since the mid-1990s, took much too long. This delay exposed County residents to the possibility of a failure in a critical service.

Related Recommendations (1)

The County Executive and Chief Information Officer should ensure that an inventory of indispensable (mission-critical) IT systems exists covering all County departments and service providers. This inventory should be reviewed regularly to be sure all systems: • Are operating efficiently and with professional supervision; • Are based on modern and maintainable hardware, software, communications, and security technologies; • Have fully functional plans for system backups and contingency replacements in place; and • Pose acceptable risks for maintaining effective and continuous operation of mission-critical County services. The evaluation criteria should include a periodic comparison of features, performance, and cost-effectiveness of alternative systems available in the commercial marketplace or from other governmental providers.

The decision to develop the replacement CAPSS system in-house, as opposed to considering alternative commercial-off-the-shelf systems or contracted development, appears to be flawed. The consultant, whose study was used as background and justification for the “build” decision, did not document any detailed evaluation of capabilities and costs of alternative systems to justify this decision objectively. The CAPSS system, developed over the past six years, does appear to work reliably and with full function. However, the consequences of deciding on an in-house development leave the County exposed to the full range of risks inherent in this kind of idiosyncratic system. For example, the full cost of maintenance must be borne locally, the departure of key personnel exposes the County to risks of inadequate maintenance and support, it may be hard to attract professional IT staff to work on a one-of-a-kind local system, and the system may fall behind in terms of technology because of lack of investment by the County in on-going development. The delays in completing this system to date mean that it is based on already outdated software technology. 13

Related Recommendations (1)

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and County Executive should institute immediately a county-wide requirement to justify in detail any decision to build, operate, and maintain in-house a mission-critical software system or service. It should be expected that the most common approach will be to purchase commercial-off-the-shelf systems and services wherever possible. Any decision to approve an in-house solution should be revisited regularly, on a time scale appropriate to the evolution of relevant technologies, to revalidate such an in-house implementation decision.

The management of the project to upgrade the IT infrastructure of the County 9-1-1 dispatch operation does not conform either to industry standards for prudent software engineering practice or to the current standards used by the County CIO in projects controlled centrally. While a collection of memos and documents related to system development exists, there are no formal system and interface specification documents, design documents, development milestone schedules, testing and rollout plans, or total system cost accounting. The project appears to have overlooked the impact that Year 2000 information technology upgrades would have on its schedule. New programmers on the project, who replace the key developers who recently retired, must study the system code to understand the system and perform their functions of supporting, maintaining, and extending the system.

Related Recommendations (1)

The County CIO has already established project management and software engineering standards for information technology projects that come directly under his control. These standards should be mandatory for any other mission-critical information technology projects that may be delegated by the CIO to be managed directly under other autonomous County Departments. There should be no exceptions to the enforcement of software engineering practices that conform to best practices in commercial software development and service enterprises.

The County Executive and the Communications Department appear to lack a clear commitment to the Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Project and its evaluation of Internet-based technologies to try to achieve better interoperation and information-sharing among emergency response services. The County 9-1-1 service, while highly professional in the services it offers, appears to operate within a limited scope of providing the services within its mandate, to the exclusion of providing longer range vision, leadership, and collaboration to other jurisdictions and agencies in the region. 14

Related Recommendations (1)

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and the County Executive should reaffirm their commitment to information-sharing, infrastructure-sharing, system-interoperation, and collaboration among all emergency service providers in the County and region. This commitment should include the County taking an active leadership and coordinating role in on-going projects such as the Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Project and in initiating other efforts seeking to develop more responsive, reliable, integrated, and cost-effective approaches to providing emergency public safety response capabilities, including the possible consolidation of some of the current 13 separate 9-1-1 operations in the County. The County should take an active role in seeking state and/or federal funding to facilitate such projects. PASSED and ADOPTED by the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury on this 18th day of May 2005. ________________________________ Michael A. Smith Foreperson 15

Conclusions 21

CL1 Page 13

Until the end of 2004, the County Communications Department’s 9-1-1 information technology infrastructure relied on hardware and software already obsolete in the late 1990s. The upgrade of the Computer-Aided Public Safety System, in the planning stages since the mid-1990s, took much too long. This delay exposed County residents to the possibility of a failure in a critical service.
CL2 Page 14

The management of the project to upgrade the IT infrastructure of the County 9-1-1 dispatch operation does not conform either to industry standards for prudent software engineering practice or to the current standards used by the County CIO in projects controlled centrally. While a collection of memos and documents related to system development exists, there are no formal system and interface specification documents, design documents, development milestone schedules, testing and rollout plans, or total system cost accounting. The project appears to have overlooked the impact that Year 2000 information technology upgrades would have on its schedule. New programmers on the project, who replace the key developers who recently retired, must study the system code to understand the system and perform their functions of supporting, maintaining, and extending the system.
CL3 Page 16

California Government Code Sections 53100 et seq., “Warren-911-Emergency Assistance Act,” 1972 and more recent amendments to accommodate advances in telephony technology.
CL4 Page 16

General Services Agency Communications Services, http://www.sccgov.org/channel/0,4770,chid%253D15741%2526sid%253D11807,00.ht ml, [Last accessed 18 April 2005.]
CL5 Page 16

Baran P, "On Distributed Communications Networks," IEEE Transactions on Systems, March 1964. [RAND Corporation work to develop robust, failure-resistant, reconfigurable, distributed communications networks that could survive a disaster.]
CL6 Page 16

Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Project, Project Management Plan, Northrop Grumman Space & Mission Systems Corporation, December 2003.
CL7 Page 16

The United States Conference of Mayors, Homeland Security Monitoring Center, “Interoperability Survey,” June 2004.
CL8 Page 16

Telecommunications Engineering Associates, “Computer Aided Public Safety System (CAPSS): Report on the Feasibility of Continued Software Development,” May 1996.
CL9 Page 16

Memorandum from County Information Systems Specialist to Director, General Services Administration Communications Services, “Requests for Technology funding in FY 1999,” December 27, 1997.
CL10 Page 16

Information Technology Request for Funding, FY 1999, for County Communications Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) System Hardware Upgrade & Software Rewrite Project, from Director, GSA Communications Department, March 4, 1998.
CL11 Page 16

Memorandum from Director, GSA Communications Department to ISPPC Committee Members, “GSA-Communications Revised CAD Conversion Implementation Schedule,” March 20, 1998.
CL12 Page 16

CAPSS Down Sizing/Replacement Plan, by Sr. Programming Analyst, GSA Data Processing, prepared for County of Santa Clara GSA Communications, March 10, 1998.
CL13 Page 16

CAPSS Down Sizing/Replacement Plan – Revised 01/13/2000, by Sr. Programming Analyst, GSA Data Processing, prepared for County of Santa Clara GSA Communications, January 13, 2000.
CL14 Page 16

Quarterly Technology Project Status Report, County Communications Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) System Hardware Upgrade & Software Rewrite Project (ITEC Fund ID: FY99FSA001A), from GSA Communications, 7/14/04 (Revision 1).
CL15 Page 17

Chief Information Officer, City of Palo Alto, 4 Feb. 2005. 17 Interviews (cont’d.)
CL16 Page 17

Communication from the County Chief Information Officer to the Finance and Government Operations Committee of the County Board of Supervisors, “ Information Systems Strategic Plan and Information Technology Three-Year Plan,” FGOC-CE01 120203, December 2, 2003.
CL17 Page 17

City of Palo Alto, Police Department Communications Division, Computer Aided Dispatch System Request for Proposal (RFP) # 99680, Issued August 6, 1997.
CL18 Page 17

City of Palo Alto, City Manager, Report to City Council, “Request for Approval of Budget Amendment Ordinance in the Amount of $325,000 and Approval of Agreement with Public Safety Systems, Inc. for a Computer Aided Dispatch System,” CMR:186:98, April 6, 1998.
CL19 Page 17

City of Palo Alto, “Functionality Checklist,” Computer Aided Dispatch Functional Requirements Sign-Off.
CL20 Page 17

City of Palo Alto, “Information Technology Strategic Plan, Final Draft,” May 3, 1999.
CL21 Page 17

City and County of San Francisco, Emergency Communications Department Annual Report 2002-2003, http://www.sfgov.org/site/ecd_index.asp [Last accessed 24 April 2005.] Interviews

No Responses Found 1

Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.

Santa Clara County County