Emmaus Police to get new Computer Server

voted 5-0 Monday night to lease a new HP Microsoft Windows Small Business Server for the . The cost of the four-year lease agreement with Integra1 is $581.55 per month or $27,914.40 over the duration of the lease.

Emmaus Police Chief David Faust came before council to ask the borough to lease the new server. Purchasing a new server for the department, he said, is another capital project that the department has been budgeting for year after year, that hasn’t been funded.

Faust’s request for the server was preceded by a .

“A computer server is not a commodity, it’s a necessity” in law enforcement today, according to Faust, who listed the many places the Emmaus Police Station connects with electronically each day, including the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Lehigh County 911 Center, and the department’s patrol cars.

“The existing server is causing shutdowns in the patrol vehicles, as well as at headquarters,” Faust said. “When an officer is taking data, the server will shut down. There are a lot of hiccups and it is causing a lot of issues. In order to keep the officers online, this server is a must.”

A memo from Emmaus Borough Manager Shane Pepe to council and Emmaus Mayor Winfield Iobst discussed at Monday night's meeting makes the case for leasing the server over buying it.

The memo states that purchasing the server outright would save the borough $2,083.45 over the cost of the lease agreement. Pepe then goes on to point out that in the past the borough has paid Integra1 $1,000 for a one-day service call for the existing Emmaus PD server.

"There are tangible benefits to leasing the server," Pepe writes. "First and foremost, the leasing agreement comes with a full service agreement, meaning Integra1 will maintain the server at no additional cost."

Councilman Mike Waddell asked Faust if he was aware of any other police departments that had entered into lease agreements for computer servers.

Faust said that there are many departments the size of the Emmaus Police Department and larger that have multiple computer servers and that many of those departments are leasing more than one of those servers.

Councilmen Brian Holtzhafer and Nathan Brown were absent from Monday night’s meeting.