The Ocala Police Department is asking the city to renew a one-year contract worth $244,000 with a company that provides hardware and software maintenance and support of in-car and body-worn camera systems for officers.
The contract renewal with PCN-Strategies will be presented to the Ocala City Council during its regular meeting on Tuesday, November 5.
According to a report by city staff, the city currently uses PCN-Strategies for maintenance, hosting, and support of Getac in-car video and body camera-aided hardware and software.
The systems have been used by the Ocala Police Department, Code Enforcement, and Recreation and Parks divisions since 2020.
According to a city staff report, the systems are responsible for “all recordings of police officers dispatched to emergency and non-emergency calls.”
Those recordings can be accessed through web browsers, which allows supervisors to “review videos and evidence to manage cases and ensure proper data retention,” according to the city staff report.
The report goes on to suggest that Getac video systems are “vital to the safety” of the city, and that renewal of the maintenance contract is “imperative to ensure current licensing and support” for equipment.
“This system runs constantly and requires that we maintain a premium level of support. This renewal will allow public safety entities to receive updates and stay current with new technologies as the vendor releases them,” reads the staff report.
Getac is a Taiwanese technology company specializing in “rugged computing,” including the provision of devices, software, accessories, and professional services.
The company offers cloud-hosted services that “efficiently access required videos without expending city labor dollars extracting video files for such requests,” according to the staff report.
The Ocala City Council regularly meets on the first and third Tuesday of every month at 4 p.m. at Ocala City Hall (110 SE Watula Avenue).