City of Nashua
Office of Emergency Management Justin Kates, Director
ae 603.722.0288
11 Riverside Street katesi@nashuanh gov
Nashua, New Hampshire 03062
May 22, 2019
TO: DAN KOOKEN
PURCHASING MANAGER
SUBJECT: © CONTRACT AWARD FOR EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM
(VALUE: $66,000)
DEPARTMENT: 156 EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT; FUND: GENERAL
ACCOUNTING CATEGORY: 54 PROPERTY SERVICES
The City has a need to provide notification services to citizens and businesses during emergency and
non-emergency situations. Notification by phone, text message, e-mail, and social media can be widely utilized
across all departments in the City. Experience during the past few emergencies in Nashua have demonstrated the
need for this capability.
An Emergency Notification Committee, including representatives of Emergency Management, Mayor's Office, Police,
Fire, Public Works, Public Health, and Information Technology, met frequently throughout late 2018 and early 2019
to review the City’s existing service for emergency and non-emergency notifications, provided by CodeRED. After
comparing many vendors in the field of notification systems and recognizing the value of retaining our existing caller
database that has grown over the past three years, the committee determined the CodeRED notification system by
OnSolve, LLC provided the best value, and best service for an unlimited access contract. The contract has been
reviewed by our Legal and Risk Management Departments. Two additional services have been added to the contract
at no cost to the City, language translation & true SMS texting.
Pursuant to NRO § 5-84 (A)(3), the new service will contain pricing and be purchased based on co-operative
General Services Administration (GSA) Contract Schedule 70, Contract #GS-35F-0253W, Special Item Number
132-32. Additionally, other supplier pricing was investigated prior to determining this to be best value for the city. The
Emergency Management Director was able to negotiate the standard GSA pricing down approximately 24 percent to
a final cost of $22,000 per year for a three year net contract totaling $66,000. Our contract also provides unlimited
service for Pennichuck Water for their entire service area if they choose to take advantage of it.
Pursuant to NRO § 5-74 (B) which states that a contract that extends from the current fiscal year into succeeding
fiscal year(s) in which no funds have been appropriated nor otherwise designated for this purpose shall be approved
by the full Board of Aldermen before the contract shall become binding on the City.
All three years will be funded by as a budgeted item in Department 156 Emergency Management.
Two additional contract addendums are included to provide local access to FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert &
Warning System (IPAWS) and CodeRED’s Weather Warning functionality at no cost for as long as the State of NH
retains a contract for these features as part of their NH Alerts service. These are some of the many benefits to
