Margate Police {Aiden Palmer}
By Kevin Deutsch
Margate Police are switching to new software for processing criminal evidence and property after the current system failed to work properly, resulting in “errors,” city records show.
The department’s current evidence scanning software, OSSI, made by a company called CentralSquare, will be replaced with FileOnQ, the records show.
City commissioners on Wednesday unanimously approved the purchase of the new software. Implementation of the new technology will be paid for using money seized through the police department’s asset forfeiture program, according to Margate city documents.
“The Property and Evidence Module through OSSI has been problematic since we transitioned to this program,” Margate Police Lieutenant Ryan McCarthy told Police Chief Joseph Galaska in a March 15 memo. “This agency was informed that the program would offer the ability for Property and Evidence Staff to conduct rapid scanning of incoming/outgoing items into and from the Unit. This technology has never worked, despite a concerted effort to rectify the issue with Broward County and CentralSquare.”
McCarthy said CentralSquare’s technology is “burdensome for our officers and civilians” since it requires police officers and staffers to “produce a written property receipt, an electronic voucher in OSSI, and type a separate property screen for each item they take in.”
“This process often results in errors on one of the many steps needed to submit an item of evidence and/or property,” McCarthy wrote. “The officers and civilians have to also physically write a written description on the package of the item.”
McCarthy said the department transitioned to OSSI in 2016 as part of a consortium purchase involving numerous Broward law enforcement agencies. But the software never worked as advertised.
McCarthy wrote that representatives from agencies who use the software meet periodically to discuss the system and suggest improvements with few results.
“Through this process, it was learned that OSSI…is a legacy product and no new improvements will be made; it will merely be supported,” McCarthy said.
In response, the police department’s Property and Evidence Unit looked for software to improve its evidence scanning, McCarthy said.
They determined the FileOnQ software would “alleviate many of the issues currently experienced by the Property and Evidence Unit and our staff,” McCarthy wrote.
The system is currently used by the Boca Raton, Coral Springs, and Jupiter Police Departments.
McCarthy said he saw the software in action with Jupiter Police and “found that the program is exceptional in its ability to rapidly provide an instant accounting of every item maintained within their Property Unit.”
The total costs for implementing the new software will be $72,226: $10,440 to extract the department’s data from the old software and $61,786 for the new technology.
Maintenance of the system will cost $12,082 per year, records show.
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