Tennessee FY 2021 NARIP

Under this award, the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration, Office of Criminal Justice Programs will transfer funds to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) to aid in the state's efforts to improve criminal history records. While the TBI has used NCHIP and NARIP funds to manage Tennessee's legacy message switch and Computerized Criminal History (CCH) systems productively for many years, the legacy system has reached the highest functionality possible for technology and is considered to be out-of-date. The TBI requests to implement a modernization project for the message switch and CCH in two phases. TBI seeks funding for Phase 1 - Message Switch Modernization and plans to seek funding for Phase II - CCH Modernization in a subsequent grant application. This strategy will provide the TBI with the most risk-mitigating, cost-effective solution that provides a modern switch and user licensing of the eAgent Product Suite through the sole-sourced vendor, Diverse Computing, Inc. Funding is being requested to procure a full eAgent product suite as a modernization effort to replace the outdated TIES P4 message switch. The product suite is specifically designed to be reliable, modern, and easy to use and support, and is now the premiere message switch and user interface in the law enforcement community. The product suite includes the following: the message switch system, an interface monitoring and management mechanism, agency and user management software, robust auditing and reporting software, an innovative CCH user interface and backend support, and a tier 1 server and user interface.

Funds are also being requested to have two staff members attend the 2022 NAJIS Conference to explore IT technologies and standards that improve and engineer information sharing throughout the United States. Program management and support will also be covered with funds from the NARIP 2021 program.