The $264,000 question

After much lobbying, writing, rewriting and discussing, two Lodi projects received federal funding, capped off in March with a Congressman's visit to a City Council meeting at which he presented a check for $264,000.

Four months after that council meeting, however, the money is still sitting in a bank account — somewhere.

The Lodi Police Department should soon get its $93,530 share, though the project has changed drastically. Now it will be used for a new, computer-aided dispatching system, which Chief David Main said will speed up officers' response time and also drastically improve a crime-statistics program, which residents frequently request.

The department's current Data911 program, while functional, isn't keeping up with technology, he said. In fact, police have become so frustrated with the program's manufacturer that they recently terminated an $85,000 annual service contract for support and program updates.

"There are so many things this system doesn't do. It has served us well, but technology has advanced and this system has not," Main said. "Simple crime statistics should not be so difficult to provide to citizens."

Now the department hopes to put the federal funding toward a new program. Department officials are currently jumping through a few paperwork hoops to redirect the funding, which has yet to make it to Lodi coffers.

The remaining $170,000 in federal funding, which was intended for a computer program for Lodi Memorial Hospital patients, also has yet to arrive.

But that program has since increased in cost, and the vendor isn't working out, hospital spokeswoman Carol Farron said. The entire project has to be reconsidered, hospital officials determined Wednesday.

Both police and the hospital had no qualms with Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, who lobbied for the money and submitted the requests to Congress.

The police funding was tied to an idea dating back four years, when a joint police- and fire-training center was envisioned for a Lodi campus of San Joaquin Delta College. Now that the college has hit a number of rather large financial roadblocks, that idea doesn't appear like it's going to come to fruition. Back in 2004, the training center's project cost was $4 million. By early 2006, when Lodi officials met with then-Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, the cost had increased to $5.5 million.

Voters booted Pombo out of office in November 2006, replacing him with McNerney, who took office in January 2007 and was soon talking to city leaders about their funding requests.

Through a slightly complicated process, cities and municipalities may request federal funding. They go through an initial request process and work with their local Congressional representative, who ultimately puts together a multi-million-dollar request package to take to Washington, D.C. Congress then hashes it out and decides how much to award.

Ultimately, police requested $500,000 for the training center, and hospital officials sought $400,000 for a program that put computers at patients' bedsides so they could access their own records, contact doctors and keep in touch with family members.

In December, Congress passed a bill awarding $94,000 to police and $170,000 to the hospital.

By then, hospital officials had spent two years working on their computer project. It was the first time they had gone through a federal funding request, Farron said, and that alone was a learning process.

Hospital officials had talked with the program vendors about cutting some of the costs, but two years later, the original $400,000 estimate has increased, and the vendor isn't providing the kind of partnership the hospital had expected, Farron said.

What will happen with the hospital's portion of the federal money is not known.

Some of the projects McNerney secured money for are already moving forward and have gotten the funding, said his spokesman, Andy Stone. And some projects go through multiple funding requests.

For instance, Stone said, a mercury cleanup project on Mt. Diablo got half the requested federal funding. Now the project is going through another round of funding requests.

Stone didn't immediately know Wednesday afternoon if any other projects were on hold or being revamped, as happened in Lodi, but he does expect the police funding to go through.

The police department, which by next year will also take over fire dispatching duties, will continue using the current Data911 program until it has the money for a new one, Main said. Canceling the $85,000 contract is similar to ending an extended warranty: The department won't get software updates and will have to fix any problems on its own — something they already do, Main said.

"The current program has done well, but we could not, in all consciousness, continue to spend $85,000 a year when we get no upgrades or service, when we could put that money to better use," Main said.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

Lodi Resident wrote on Jul 31, 2008 2:02 PM:

" Hi Lodian,

I didn't want another month to go by without making sure you were still spending all your waking hours here.

Thanks for not disapointing me. "

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