Bel Air approves $37,336 purchase of 10 Panasonic Toughbooks for police vehicles

The Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners unanimously approved on Oct. 6 a $37,336.10 purchase of 10 Panasonic Toughbook computers, protection plans and docking stations for the police department.

Staff told the board the town follows a five-year replacement cycle to keep mobile data computers under warranty and to avoid out-of-warranty downtime; the current police Toughbooks were about five years old and Microsoft Windows 10 support was ending on Oct. 14, 2025. The procurement used a cooperative contract issued by the City of Mesa (RFP 202456) through the Omnia Partners cooperative, and SHI International was the lowest of three quotes. Staff said the combined price was within the FY26 budget.

Commissioners praised staff for cost savings; Commissioner Taylor estimated piggybacking on the Mesa contract saved roughly $15,000. Commissioner Chismar asked about repair turnaround and warranty response times; staff said the technology manager sometimes repairs devices in-house but would provide specific warranty response time details after the meeting. The purchase was approved 5-0.

The purchase includes docking stations necessary for installing the laptops in police vehicles; staff said they will retain one or two older units as spares but the new docking configuration will require matching hardware in the vehicles.