Open Source In State and Local Government

Open Source In State and Local GovernmentThe BackgroundLEADR: Law Enforcement Automated Data ReplicatorLarge scale data collection and query toolInstalled in 3 states

BackgroundThe project started in the low country of South Carolina in 3 counties. There were 3 sheriffs 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 SourceIn 2003 grants were obtained to expand the system to 21 AgenciesQuotes 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 ProjectNo additional cost to agencies after development.Use common technologies and data standardsMake the software freely available to Law Enforcement agencies.Use open source and open data standardsUser and Operations manuals provided to customers

The Move to the State levelDuring the 2nd 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 dollarsAdvantages of Open Source and the Next StateAfter the success of South Carolina, Tennessee wanted to implement LEADRProject goalsBring in 250 agencies in the first phase of the project.Replace DB IV based RMS fat client with open sourced webRMS system.Project was completed on time using the exiting code base at a cost of $750k

ConclusionMoving 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 softwareState money is spent on features, not licenses.