Mission Critical Operations Centers Bring Everything Together
Those outcomes depend on reliable connectivity. Thomas urged CIOs to treat mobility as a backbone, blending public safety broadband with commercial LTE/5G and satellite failover to survive disasters and cover rural gaps.
He cautioned against relying on consumer hotspot “pucks” in patrol cars as video and sensor traffic grows. Instead, he recommended bonded, multi‑SIM rugged routers with enough throughput for two‑way video and data, paired with purpose‑built rugged devices that can withstand drops, weather and contamination to reduce IT repairs.
Centralizing awareness is the next step. Thomas advocated mission‑critical operations centers — scalable rooms that fuse camera feeds, license plate readers, Internet of Things sensors and analytics dashboards onto collaborative displays.
Modern MCOCs no longer require big‑city budgets, he said; small communities are spinning up two‑operator rooms that unify computer‑aided dispatch with video to support faster, shared decisions across agencies. With IoT inputs such as flood gauges and crosswalk occupancy sensors, analytics platforms can flag abnormal movement patterns, and AI can escalate response by cueing surveillance and drone assets.
Thomas emphasized governance and security as agencies modernize. He recommended mapping data holdings from body‑worn cameras to 911 metadata; enforcing role‑based access in a zero‑trust model; and testing models in AI sandboxes that use approved or synthetic data, log outputs and keep a human in the loop before production use.
READ MORE: State and local agencies can take these steps for zero trust.
Grants May Help Pay for Public Safety Investments
Curtiss Strietelmeier, manager of public sector funding at CDW Government, said agencies can often underwrite projects by aligning components to different grant sources. Annual programs from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security support cybersecurity, emergency management and infrastructure. Justice Assistance Grants routinely cover rugged laptops for public safety, and a grant application dedicated to body‑worn cameras is open now. Infrastructure initiatives can help connect roadside sensors, traffic systems and operations centers.
“You can tie different parts of a project to different grants,” Strietelmeier said. “We may not get every award, but we can offset total costs by aligning objectives and timelines.”
He warned that grants run on their own calendars — often six to 18 months from concept to award — and that early coordination with finance and procurement reduces delays, especially for projects that introduce new AI capabilities.
Strietelmeier flagged several timing considerations. He noted a temporary hold on the Emergency Management Performance Grant allocation while federal population data is updated, along with broader delays as a result of slowed federal operations. Overall totals are likely to remain relatively flat year over year, he said, placing a premium on careful planning and demonstrable outcomes.
Both speakers urged agencies to measure what matters and publish progress every 90 days. Suggested metrics include time to retrieve critical evidence from video and sensors; device uptime and failover performance; multifactor authentication adoption and patch currency on high‑risk endpoints; and cost per incident for storage and bandwidth.
“If you baseline today and show steady improvement, it’s easier to expand pilots into sustained programs,” Thomas said.
The presenters recommended picking one or two high‑value use cases — for example, AI‑assisted transcription for 911 quality assurance, or a small MCOC that unifies CAD and video — and launching them in fewer than 90 days inside a policy‑aligned sandbox. In parallel, leaders should formalize a cross‑functional data governance council and map grant timelines to procurement milestones.
