Security systems for Colorado Springs government facilities

What a government facility needs that a commercial building does not

Three things, and they are all procedural rather than technical.

The first is personnel. Vendors working in or around law enforcement facilities, courthouses, jails, and dispatch centers fall under the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Security Policy. There is no company certification to buy. What the policy requires is that the technicians entering those spaces pass fingerprint-based background screening, complete CJIS security awareness training, and work under a security addendum with the agency. Ask an integrator whether its technicians are cleared, not whether the company is certified. Our technicians are cleared.

The second is procurement. A public entity cannot simply hire the integrator it prefers. The work has to arrive through a route the entity’s rules recognize, and the routes available change what is possible and how long it takes.

The third is records. Public facilities are audited, inspected, and occasionally litigated. What you can produce matters as much as what you installed.

Procurement routes into Colorado Springs public facilities

We hold preferred vendor agreements with three Colorado municipalities on multi-year terms, plus a bid waiver with a fourth. For entities with an existing agreement in place, work can proceed without a competitive solicitation for each project.

We also participate in OMNIA Partners cooperative purchasing, which lets public agencies buy against an already-competed contract rather than running their own solicitation. For a school district or a county facility with a mid-year need and no time for a bid cycle, that is often the difference between the project happening this fiscal year and next.

For entities that do require a solicitation, we bid. The point is that the procurement route should be settled early, because it determines the schedule more than the installation does.

The facilities we secure in El Paso County

Colorado Springs has more public buildings per capita than most Colorado markets. City and county administrative offices, courthouses, public works and utilities facilities, water treatment plants, libraries, parks and recreation buildings, and fleet and maintenance yards all sit under different departments with different requirements.

El Paso County also contains eight school districts. District 11, Academy District 20, District 49, Harrison District 2, Widefield District 3, Cheyenne Mountain District 12, Fountain-Fort Carson District 8, and Manitou Springs District 14 each operate their own buildings and budget cycles. We work with districts on access control, camera systems, and fire alarm, including systems another integrator installed. Our school and campus security work in Colorado Springs covers that side in more detail.

Our Colorado Springs office also delivered a State of Colorado facility upgrade in Denver, replacing 52 cameras and integrating 17 existing cameras onto a single platform, with the entire system isolated from the State network and one server reaching across on a defined IP address. That project is written up in full in the State of Colorado camera upgrade case study.

Network isolation, and why IT gets involved early

Public agency IT departments frequently will not accept cameras, recorders, and controllers on the agency network. That is a design constraint rather than a preference, and it changes the project.

Isolating a security system means its own switches, its own addressing, and a single controlled point where anything crosses to the agency network, if anything crosses at all. Deciding that during design costs nothing. Discovering it after the cable is pulled means rework.

Bring the agency’s IT staff into the conversation before equipment is specified. Ask who furnishes the switches, who assigns addresses, whether the system sits on an isolated network, and who administers it afterward. Those four answers determine most of the cost variance on a public sector security project.

Working in occupied public buildings

Most government security work is a retrofit in a building that cannot close.

A courthouse holds proceedings. A public works facility dispatches crews at six in the morning. A school is occupied for nine months and largely empty for three, which is why summer is the season for district work and why scoping has to happen in winter to make it.

Practical consequences: work happens after hours or in phases, doors cannot be out of service during occupancy without an alternative, and the fire alarm cannot be impaired without notification and a watch. An integrator that has not worked in occupied public buildings tends to price this wrong and discover it during the job.

Who administers the system after we leave

The agency does, and that should be written down before the project starts.

Administrative credentials, platform licensing, system documentation, and as-built drawings should transfer to the agency at closeout, by name, in the contract. Some platforms register licensing to the installing dealer rather than to the owner. A public entity that cannot log into its own access control system as an administrator does not fully own it, and recovering that later is difficult and occasionally impossible.

Ask for it in writing at procurement. It costs nothing then.

Frequently asked questions

What does CJIS clearance mean for a security vendor?

It means the individual technicians have passed fingerprint-based background screening and completed CJIS security awareness training, and that the vendor works under a security addendum with the agency. It applies to people, not to companies, and there is no company certification for it. Any facility processing, storing, or displaying criminal justice information falls under the policy, which in practice covers police and sheriff facilities, dispatch centers, courthouses, and some school district and county offices with data sharing agreements.

Can a Colorado Springs public agency buy security systems without going out to bid?

Often, yes. Cooperative purchasing vehicles such as OMNIA Partners let agencies buy against an already-competed contract. Existing preferred vendor agreements and bid waivers can also apply. Which routes are available depends on the entity’s own procurement rules and the dollar threshold, so that question is worth answering before the project is scoped rather than after.

Do you work on military installations?

No. We work with city, county, school district, and state facilities. We do not hold the clearances required for classified environments or SCIF construction.

Can you service a system another company installed?

Usually. It depends on the platform, whether the agency holds its own administrative credentials and licensing from the original installation, and whether we hold the manufacturer authorization. We are authorized for Genetec, Axis, Gallagher, Avigilon, AMAG, Salto, and Milestone. Those three questions are worth asking before assuming an agency is locked in with its current provider.

How quickly can you respond to a service call in Colorado Springs?

Our technicians are based in Colorado Springs, not dispatched from Denver or the Front Range. Response commitments depend on whether an agency has a service agreement in place and what it specifies, which is a conversation worth having before something fails rather than during.