Agenda Item Wording:
title
Authorization to Increase Allocated Funds & Amend Contract - Authorize City staff to initiate Measure N amendment process to increase allocated funds and amend the contract for the Visalia Police Department’s body-worn camera program.
body
Prepared by:
Jason Salazar, Police Chief, jason.salazar@visalia.city <mailto:jason.salazar@visalia.city>, 559-713-4215; Police Captain Dan Ford, Daniel.ford@visalia.city <mailto:Daniel.ford@visalia.city>, 559-713-4151; Financial Analyst Liz Ybarra, liz.ybarra@visalia.city; 559-713-4250
Department Recommendation:
Authorize staff to initiate the Measure N amendment process to amend the current body-worn camera (BWC) contract with Axon Enterprise Inc, in the amount $431,350.65 to increase the number of BWC users and associated equipment and licenses. Staff is requesting to appropriate $138,121 for FY 2025/26 and include the remainder of the increase in the two-year budget beginning in FY 2026/27. If approved, staff will present the proposed changes to the Measure N Committee for comments and return to Council to conduct two public hearings.
Summary:
Measure N serves as the funding source for the Police Department’s BWC Program. The BWC program began in 2018 and is currently in the second year of a five-year contract. The total cost for the current five-year contract is $1,738,749.49, of which $650,390,77 has been paid for the first two years of the contract. Included in this contract were 131 Officer Safety 7 Plan (OSP 7) which includes a BWC, Taser 7, user license, and Signal Sidearm sensor. In addition to the OSP 7 bundles, the contract also includes 26 Pro-User Licenses, 15 Basic-User Licenses, and unlimited digital storage. The equipment and licenses included in the current contract were sufficient for the needs of the department based on the staffing levels at the time the contract was signed. This included consistent staffing shortages and several long-term disability claims that were pending resolution - both of which allowed staff to efficiently deploy the resources without amending the contract or incurring additional cost. However, staffing issues appear to have been resolved, and department staffing is consistently at or near maximum sworn staffing.
In 2018, the initial deployment of BWCs were limited to uniformed personnel, at or below the rank of sergeant. This deployment method was consistent with industry standards during that time, as uniformed personnel were the staff most likely to have constant contact with the public. Since the deployment, additional units, including SWAT, investigations and staff above the rank of sergeant have been identified as staff that should be issued BWCs. The department was able to equip these personnel due to the staffing shortages by using licenses assigned to vacant positions. Now that the Department has reached or remains consistently near the level of full staffing, staff have had to pull BWCs from these units and personnel, increasing the risk of liability to both the Department and our staff. Additionally, the increased workload on the digital evidence staff through ever increasing Public Records Act (PRA) and District Attorney’s Office (DA) requests have impacted staff’s ability to manage the user licenses and evidence tagging features associated with BWC video evidence. Finally, it has become best practice for all staff working in the field and having direct contact with the community to be equipped with a BWC for preservation of evidence, reducing the risks associated with civil litigation, and ensuring effective service is delivered to the community.
To ensure that this occurs, staff are recommending that all sworn members of the department, not assigned to a senior administrative role, be equipped with a BWC and associated equipment and licenses included in the OSP7 Bundle. This will require 34 additional OSP 7 Bundles in FY 2025/26 and two additional bundles in 2026/27. Additionally, staff are requesting the acquisition of Axon Auto-Tagging, which will integrate with the City’s records management software and automatically tag video evidence for the majority of video evidence, reducing the amount of staff time spent on the evidence tagging process. Staff have negotiated 10 additional BWCs and associated licenses for our Community Service and Parking Enforcement officers, and 30 basic licenses for communications operators at no additional cost.
Background Discussion:
The Department is requesting to amend the current contract with Axon Enterprise, Inc. to increase the total cost of the contract by $431,350.65, spread out over the remaining three years of the contract, to increase the current amount of OSP 7 plans including associated equipment, license and services. The Department began their BWC Program in 2018 and is approaching the midpoint in their second five-year contract. The current contract took effect in FY 2023/24 and totaled $1,738,749.49. Included in this contract were the following services:
• 131 Officer Safety Plans
• 131 Axon Performance Licenses
• 155 Axon VR Training Licenses (and associated hardware)
• Axon Standards (No Cost)
• 14 Axon Air Licenses (No Cost)
• 3 Axon Investigate Licenses (No Cost)
• Axon Migrate
The above-mentioned items represented a significant increase in service. It replaced aging Tasers for the majority of department staff, increased the Department’s ability to ensure compliance with BWC policy, replaced software utilized for use of force reporting and tracking, and provided the Department with a valuable training tool to better train and prepare our staff for situations they may encounter in the field. Additionally, several add-ons were obtained at no cost that have helped streamline investigations and UAS operations.
During this period, staff recognized the need for additional equipment and licenses to widen the deployment of BWCs. Best practices have moved from solely equipping uniformed personnel with BWCs to departmentwide deployment for sworn staff and professional staff, who respond to calls for service or take enforcement action. Examples of this include detectives, SWAT operators that are not assigned to patrol, command staff that are in non-administrative positions that include field management responsibilities, community service officers, and parking enforcement officers. Since this contract was signed, the department has also observed members of the community becoming hostile towards parking enforcement officers, necessitating the issuance of BWCs to these members to ensure staff could record these volatile contacts. In previous years, staffing vacancies allowed the department to assign BWCs to many of the members described above, at no additional cost. Because of staffing, it was only a matter of BWC program management - the transferring of equipment and licenses, to equip staff previously described in accordance with best practices.
As a result of Council approval of the most recent bargaining agreement, and aggressive recruiting procedures by the Department and City Administration, the department is now consistently at or near full staffing levels. Although this has provided a tremendous benefit to the community by increasing the level of services we provide, it has also impacted staff’s ability to maintain the same level of deployment for the BWC program. Staff had to pull BWCs from SWAT operators, parking enforcement officers, and command staff members. The limited number of BWCs has also complicated the administration of the BWC program, causing staff to spend hours each month ensuring that there are sufficient BWCs in the field to address maintenance issues and staffing needs.
In addition to managing the equipment needed for staff, the amount of time needed to properly manage the digital evidence provided by our BWC program has become complicated by the increased demand from both the public and DA’s Office for BWC footage. The department has seen a tremendous increase in Public Records Act Requests (PRAs) for digital evidence. Staff have spent 648 hours redacting over 1200 videos for PRAs since 2023 (402 videos in 2023, 556 in 2024, and 263 as of April 16, 2025). In addition to these PRAs, staff have processed over 6,683 requests for the DAs Office, transferring over 140,103 pieces of digital evidence for criminal investigations since 2023. This pattern of work continues to place more work onto our digital evidence technicians, emphasizing the need for force-multiplying software to support staff.
Finally, the benefits of BWCs on civil litigation is immense. BWCs have demonstrated a higher likelihood of cases being resolved at the summary judgement level and provide the potential of strong evidence to counter plaintiff arguments in claims. This provides a means of avoiding unnecessary costs for civil defense and reduces the likelihood of costly verdicts. For cases that do go to court, BWC evidence has become an expectation for juries, and failure to provide video evidence will be used by opposing legal counsel to claim that we are intentionally covering something up.
Staff are requesting to acquire a total of 36 new OSP7 bundles throughout the remainder of the contract - 34 in FY 2025/26 to account for 33 current staff and one Measure N position, and two additional bundles in FY 2026/27 for the last two Measure N allocated positions. Staff would need corresponding increases for Axon Performance, which serves as a data management and auditing tool, and three Axon VR license for the Measure N positions. Finally, staff are asking to acquire Axon Auto-Tagging software to assist officers in tagging videos while reducing the amount of time digital evidence staff spend cataloging or correcting digital evidence for processing. Axon Auto-Tagging is able to connect to the current records management system and will be able to use the disposition information entered into that system to automatically tag the digital evidence. This will provide significant time saving for the officers and digital evidence staff.
The OSP7 bundle will include the Axon Body 4 BWC, Taser 7, Pro Licenses, and Community Share License. Axon will also provide new docking stations, include Signal Sidearm (a sensor that activates the BWC upon a firearm being unholstered), and provide the GPS location of the BWC when powered on. Finally, the bundle will include Axon Standards which is a use of force reporting system that is integrated with Axon’s cloud storage (Evidence.com). This will allow for tracking and reviewing of use of force incidents in accordance with Department polices and best practices.
Through negotiations, staff were able to obtain additional services at no cost. Staff were able to secure ten additional BWCs (including Pro Licenses, and unlimited storage) to equip Community Service Officers and Parking Enforcement Officers who are responding to calls for service. Staff were also able to obtain a total of 30 Basic user licenses for our Communications Operators to assist in providing GPS coordinates for officers or reviewing information on evidence.com for staff in the field. Finally, staff were able to secure a 50% reduction in cost for Axon Auto-Tagging.
Axon Services Deployment Schedule:
|
Year |
OSP7 Plans |
Axon VR |
Axon Performance |
Auto-Tagging |
|
2023/24 |
130 |
155 |
130 |
0 |
|
2024/25 |
131 (+1) |
155 |
131 (+1) |
0 |
|
2025/26 |
165 (+34) |
156 (+1) |
165 (+34) |
165 |
|
2026/27 |
167 (+2) |
158 (+2) |
167 (+2) |
167 |
|
2027/28 |
167 |
158 |
167 |
167 |
Axon Amendment Cost Increase:
|
Service |
Net Cost |
Tax |
Subtotal |
|
OSP 7 Bundle |
$361,861.83 |
$20,154.53 |
$382,016.36 |
|
Axon Performance |
$14,020.44 |
- |
$14,020.44 |
|
Auto-Tagging |
$32,995.38 |
- |
$32,995.38 |
|
Axon VR |
$2,136.84 |
$181.63 |
$2,318.47 |
|
|
|
Total Cost |
$431,350.65 |
Fiscal Impact:
As indicated in the chart below, staff requests an allocation of $431,350.65, spread out over the remaining three years of the contract. Staff are requesting to appropriate $138,121 in FY 2025/26 and apply the remainder in the next two-year budget cycle.
|
AXON Contract C24002 |
|
Amendment #2 |
|
Billing Schedule - Equipment, Licenses, and Tax |
|
Description |
Year 1 |
Year 2 |
Year 3 |
Year 4 |
Year 5 |
Total |
|
Equip & Services (Original) |
$312,850 |
$338,379 |
$349,759 |
$361,595 |
$373,904 |
$1,736,487 |
|
Amendment #1 |
- |
$6,513 |
$6,773 |
$7,045 |
$7,326 |
$27,657 |
|
Amendment #2 (Current Request) |
- |
- |
$138,121 |
$46,651 |
$146,651 |
$431,351 |
|
Total |
$312,850 |
$344,892 |
$494,654 |
$515,290 |
$527,909 |
$2,195,495 |
Prior Council Action:
June 19, 2023 - Council awarded $1,738,749.49 for contract with Axon Enterprise.
Other: N/A
Alternatives: Deny motion directing staff to enter into Measure N amendment process.
Recommended Motion (and Alternative Motions if expected):
recommendation
I move to authorize City staff to initiate Measure N amendment process to increase allocated funds and amend the contract for the Visalia Police Department’s body-worn camera program.
end
Environmental Assessment Status: N/A
CEQA Review: N/A
Deadline for Action: 5/19/2025
Attachments: 1. Axon Enterprise Quote, 2. June 19, 2023, Staff Report.