Warwick OKs Opioid-Funded Police Data Tool Without Plate Camera Data

Warwick police will use a $129,500, one-year data platform, paid with opioid settlement money, starting Dec. 1. A police major said it only speeds searches of existing data and excludes Flock license plate camera data. Renewals would cost 3% more each year. A council member filed an ordinance to regulate such platforms, and another warned later years need a different funding source.

Warwick, R.I. — The Warwick City Council on Monday night approved a one-year, $129,500 contract for a police data analytics platform paid with opioid settlement money. The approval came alongside a separate push to write into city law that license plate camera data can never be fed into the system.

The contract was part of the council's bids resolution, PCR-119-26, which passed 9-0 on a roll-call vote after the Finance Committee recommended it by voice vote. This account is drawn from the Warwick City Council's published meeting recording.

Later in the evening, during the docketing session, when members file items for future meetings, a council member filed an ordinance described as "regulations for public safety data integration and analytics platforms." No text of that ordinance was presented Monday.

What the police department is buying Major Ryan Sornberger of the Warwick Police Department told the Finance Committee the department wanted an exception to the normal bidding rules to sign a service agreement with a Delaware-based software vendor. The contract would run from Dec. 1 through Nov. 30, 2027. He said the vendor's platform is proprietary and that he believes it qualifies as a sole-source purchase.

Sornberger said the department's primary purpose is to strengthen its opioid response, including overdose tracking and follow-up. He described a crisis response unit that visits overdose victims and their families a few days after an incident, along with a clinician from Thrive Behavioral Health. He said overdose-related information is now spread across several systems and must be searched by hand.

The department's current records system, from Information Management Corporation, is 26 years old, Sornberger said, and data retrieval is slow. He said the city is shopping for a new records system and the platform would "bridge that gap" in the meantime.

He said the platform would link three data sources: the records and computer-assisted dispatch system, Axon body camera footage and PowerDMS, which holds department policies. He gave the example of an officer trying to recall a call involving a white Subaru at a Motel 6, which he said could take hours to find now and would come up instantly.

Sornberger said the tool "doesn't create new information" and only searches data the department already holds. He listed other uses, including public records requests, subpoenas, false-alarm tracking and flags for officers who respond to several traumatic calls in a short period. He said state law limits records-request charges to $15 an hour, and the city loses money on large requests.

On data security, he said the city owns all the data, the vendor stores copies in a cloud service, and user permissions are controlled by the department. He said the platform mirrors the permissions and retention limits of each source system and does not keep its own stored copies of analyzed results.

He said deployment would begin Dec. 1 and take about 90 days.

Cost beyond the first year Sornberger said the vendor applies a 3% annual price increase to every client. He put year two at $133,395 and year three at $137,386. He said Providence, Cranston and South Kingstown use the product with the same escalator.

Asked why the department sought only one year instead of the three-year term in the vendor's paperwork, he said he expected the tool to work. But he said a new records system the city buys could have similar search features built in, which could make the platform unnecessary.

Sornberger said there would be no extra fees for connecting the systems beyond the $129,500.

The opioid account balance was given during the discussion as $879,789.98. A committee member raised a concern that if opioid money is not available in future years, the cost would fall to taxpayers.

Questions about the sole-source claim A committee member questioned whether the vendor's letter actually established it as the only provider. The member said the letter states the platform is "the only end-to-end software available on the market with the following integrated capabilities," which the member said does not definitively say it is a sole source.

The member said their own research turned up potential competitors and listed Axon, Mark43, Motorola Solutions and another company. Sornberger replied that those are records management systems, not search platforms that pull data together. He also asked whether competing vendors meet CJIS standards, the FBI's security rules for criminal justice data, and HIPAA, the federal medical privacy law, given the overdose work.

Sornberger said the department has not yet seen a Mark43 demonstration and expects one early next year, but wants this product now.

Keeping license plate camera data out Flock is the company behind the automated license plate reader cameras Warwick uses. Sornberger said the department originally considered connecting Flock data to the platform but dropped it, saying "based on the climate and where it's going," the department wanted to keep it separate. He said Flock data could not reach the platform unless the city paid for that connection, which it did not.

A committee member then stated for the record that the police department would not share any Flock data with the vendor for any purpose. "That is correct," Sornberger replied.

The member said they would ask City Clerk Tara Booth for a copy of the council's earlier Flock ordinance or resolution to review it. "This Flock thing is becoming more and more of a concern to me with every comment, with every email, with every text that I get," the member said, adding that current officials will not always be in office.

The member asked what language could bar the sharing. The response was that it would be addressed through the city's ordinances, as the council did with license plate readers, rather than as a condition on the bid. The member asked for a docket memo before the docketing session.

Sornberger later relayed that a vendor representative watching remotely said the contract could also state no Flock data would be entered. The member said they would still pursue an ordinance "because contract language can change and does change."

A warning on how the money is used Councilman Vincent Gebhart said the packet had listed a Flock connector as an option, and noted the council created its own ordinance governing the cameras before they were installed. He said that ordinance is "something we should probably look at again as things on the ground have changed somewhat."

Gebhart asked whether the department would try a free trial of a Flock connection. Sornberger said the vendor would not offer one and that he saw no reason to add Flock. Gebhart said such a connection would likely run afoul of the data retention policy in the city's ordinance.

Gebhart also questioned the opioid funding. He said the risk is that the tool "becomes a mechanism for some type of enforcement or police work rather than, how do we help people who are suffering from addiction." He said the first year may be justified, but "beyond that, I do think you have to find a funding source that makes sense to continue the program."

Sornberger said officers can already run the same searches, "They just have to watch a loading bar of a 26-year-old system." Gebhart responded that "the loading bar in some ways served as a buffer between what could be accomplished and what was possible," and said the public has concerns about how integrated the city's data is becoming.

The contract is set to begin Dec. 1. The newly filed ordinance on data integration platforms will come before the council at a future meeting, where its specific language would be debated.

Warwick OKs Opioid-Funded Police Data Tool Without Plate Camera Data

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