June was another busy month for us. I had quite a few different meetings, trainings, and the budget process was in full swing. We started out June with the Texas Association of Counties doing a course and driving simulator here at the SO. It is a pretty neat training course complete with a trailer that’s set up with a virtual driving course. Inside it is set up just like a Tahoe interior complete with lights, siren, dashboard, and everything you would see inside of a normal patrol vehicle. It’s surrounded by large monitors that simulate traffic, pedestrians and road conditions. It was training, but it was a lot of fun.

We are 10 months in now on our new software that I’ve previously talked about. We spent several months working out several quirks and bugs that comes along with any new software and it appears that everything is finally starting to smooth out. It has been such a benefit for us to be linked together with dispatch and other departments. Now the courthouse is going through the same process of switching reporting software and we will be working to tie some of our records in with theirs. We aren’t out of the woods yet, but we are getting closer. It takes a while to switch over all these systems from the old ones that have been used for the last 25 years and then making them all intertwine.

There are some several other projects that we’ve been working on. One of which is creating a space in the jail for inmates to have church, life skill classes, AA and NA meetings, etc. Even though we do all those things, there really hasn’t been a dedicated space for that. So we have been cleaning up and rearranging to be able to make this happen. The staff has really got on board with this idea and have been working diligently to make it happen. I’m very excited about this one and will write more on this when we get it completed.