Sheriff’s office pushes Motorola cloud CAD, new investigators and vehicle replacements in budget workshop

Sheriff Larry Smith and his chiefs presented a multi-part public-safety package to the Smith County Commissioners Court during the June 24 budget workshop, asking the court to consider a Motorola subscription model for computer-aided dispatch and related products, one additional person-crimes detective, administrative help for the sex-offender unit, and replacement of high-mileage patrol vehicles.

The sheriff’s office described the Motorola subscription as a five-year, cloud-forward option that would replace several separately licensed items in the county’s current Motorola ecosystem. Chief Jackson said the subscription would bundle CommandCentral CAD features, a CommandCentral Evidence cloud option (which could reduce on‑premises server upgrades), and a CommandCentral Responder mobile app for deputies. The sheriff’s presentation estimated a first-year cost near $398,000 for the subscription model, offset by existing CAD baseline costs and revenue from dispatch-service contracts; officials said years two through five would cost roughly $259,868 annually.

Chief Jackson emphasized operational benefits beyond technology savings: streaming school and field camera feeds into dispatch, quicker field-to-dispatch evidence uploads, interagency data sharing, and a better contingency for outages after the county’s dispatch generator failure during a prior ice storm. “It allows immediate access to our field supervisors in the field,” Jackson said of the CommandCentral tools.

New personnel requests: The sheriff asked for one additional crimes detective to reduce high caseloads in the persons-crimes unit; detectives in that unit currently average about 28.5 active cases each. The department also requested an administrative assistant to support the county’s sex‑offender registration program — the office now manages roughly 470 registered offenders and said numbers have risen by about 100 in the last decade.

Fleet and body-camera storage: The sheriff’s office asked to replace 14 patrol vehicles with more than 150,000 miles, asserting a 1:1 vehicle-to-officer ratio reduces mileage, maintenance and upfitting costs over time. The chiefs discussed options to move body-camera evidence storage toward a cloud solution rather than repeated local server buys; IT staff estimated an on-premises digital evidence server upgrade at roughly $80,000 if the county does not move to the cloud.

Tag radios purchase: Separately, the Commissioners Court approved the purchase of 10 radios, equipment and subscription services for the Texas Anti-Gang Unit from Motorola Solutions under the Houston‑Galveston Area Council cooperative purchasing agreement; Sheriff’s staff said the TAG unit purchase is state funded and will not cost Smith County taxpayers.

What the court did: The court voted to approve the TAG radio purchase (motion by Commissioner Moore; second by Commissioner Harrod; motion carried). The Motorola subscription and other sheriff requests were presented in the workshop for committee review; no final appropriation vote was taken on those multi-year items during the June 24 meeting.

Ending: Sheriff Smith and department chiefs said they would continue to work with the county IT and auditor to refine estimates and offsets; commissioners asked staff to follow up on budget impacts and integration details before final decisions.