Open Source In State and Local Government

The Background LEADR: Law Enforcement Automated Data Replicator Large scale data collection and query tool Installed in 3 states

Background The project started in the low country of South Carolina in 3 counties. There were 3 sheriff’s offices and 3 police departments initially installed. Many police departments share common Records Management Systems (RMS) Initial system installed was a closed source system.

The Switch to Open Source In 2003 grants were obtained to expand the system to 21 Agencies Quotes were given by the closed source vendor for a full license cost for each agency, even though they had already developed the adapter for a given RMS. A decision was made to Open Source and pay for the adapter development once, and do an install on common system.

Goals of the Open Source Project No additional cost to agencies after development. Use common technologies and data standards Make the software freely available to Law Enforcement agencies. Use open source and open data standards User and Operations manuals provided to customers

The Move to the State level During the 2 nd phase of the data sharing project SLED wanted to pick the project up and move it to a state wide level. Within 1 year 175 agencies were brought into the system by publishing open data standards and communication protocols to RMS vendors. A joint effort between agencies and multiple companies brought everything on board quickly. The total cost of the project was $6.5 Million dollars

Advantages of Open Source and the Next State After the success of South Carolina, Tennessee wanted to implement LEADR Project goals – Bring in 250 agencies in the first phase of the project. – Replace DB IV based RMS fat client with open sourced web RMS system. Project was completed on time using the exiting code base at a cost of $750k

Conclusion Moving to open and non-licensed based software has saved the state millions of dollars in cost. SC spends on average $5k on support and maintenance. Same philosophy applied to License Plate Reader Warehouse (4 Installations) No cost to update the system to latest versions of the software State money is spent on features, not licenses.