This story is part of the Dallas County Messenger’s series showcasing the people serving Dallas County. Lee Ann Wilson is an information systems coordinator working in Dallas County’s Office of Information Technology.

For how long you have worked at Dallas County?

For just under eight-and-a-half years.

What is your favorite part of working for Dallas County?  

I enjoy working with the Sheriff’s Department and the law-enforcement community. Supporting public safety is rewarding and also very diverse, which allows me to perform a wide variety of tasks. It is rewarding knowing that, in an indirect way, I contribute to the safety of Dallas County citizens as well as to the safety of deputies in the field.

Of what accomplishments are you most proud?   

There are several.

1. The Office of Information Technology (IT) successfully migrated the Vision Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) Application (911 dispatch) and mobile applications, including Vision Mobile and Net Motion, to Dallas County’s data center in May 2017. Moving these applications from the unmanaged Sheriff’s Department’s domain to a virtual environment allowed Dallas County to host applications within Dallas County’s data center while adhering to all Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) and IT security requirements. Virtual hosting is done within a data center, which eliminates the need for extra hardware on site and ensures that equipment can be quickly restored within minutes should it fail (e.g., a hard drive). This was a group effort that involved the Sheriff’s Department’s dedicated IT-support team (Frank Crowley Courts Building and traffic) as well as the network, security, database administrator and server teams. Collectively, the team completed this project with minimal downtime to the Sheriff’s Department’s 911 call center. This re-host not only provided a better server environment, but also, it ensured the application’s adherence to CJIS guidelines, as it now receives all required updates/patches.
2. Our office deployed the Axon Interview Room Equipment & Application for the Frank Crowley Courts Building in July 2019. The Sheriff’s Department’s Criminal Investigation Division had failing equipment, and its internal affairs and intelligence sections had no recording capabilities. They now have updated and reliable equipment that allows for streaming, cloud storage and convenient file sharing.
3. Our implementation of a print-shop application and network refresh for the Sheriff’s Department replaced an outdated application and eliminated the use of five port mini switches that were supporting the equipment in the Sheriff’s Department’s print shop. This also eliminated the unmanaged Navarro College Network. Servers now reside at the secured data center and printers and scanners reside within Dallas County’s network. With assistance from Dallas County’s IT network services, telecom and server teams, this environment is compliant, stable and faster.  

What is an example of a creative solution that the Office of Information Technology has deployed to improve a Dallas County process or help a Dallas County resident?

When the Sandra Bland Act was introduced to the Dallas County Sheriff in 2017, we came up with a creative and cost-efficient solution to track racial-profile reporting as required by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Together, the Sheriff’s Department, the database administrator, Prasad Ravuri and I worked to streamline the process of tracking and producing an annual report for the Texas Department of Public Safety. We implemented racial-profile reporting and tracking via Brazos, a public safety mobile citation solution. We also made a software modification to deputies’ Motorola handheld devices that would enable them to complete all necessary code insertions with just a few taps at the time of a stop. Now, necessary reports are generated via Brazos and can be easily submitted to the State of Texas in the required format. This has increased the efficiency and accuracy of the process and created a more convenient report-submission process.

What motivates you to continue serving as an information systems coordinator (ISC)?

An ISC is essentially a liaison between the Sheriff’s Department’s community and IT services. The role allows me to utilize and improve upon my customer-service and technical skillsets. I have the opportunity every day to continually build upon the Office of Information Technology’s great relationships with our business stakeholders.   

What would Dallas County residents be pleasantly surprised to learn about the Office of Information Technology?

Our IT-services team is a collection of outstanding professionals striving daily to ensure to the best of our abilities that all aspects of Dallas County’s technology and infrastructure perform seamlessly as intended. We take our jobs very seriously because we recognize that our work directly impacts the community and citizens of Dallas County. 

This conversation is edited for clarity.