Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Baraga County Sheriff Joe Brogan tells the Baraga County Board about an updated records management system he said will streamline operations for the county. The board approved the purchase at its meeting Monday.

L’ANSE — The Baraga County Sheriff’s Office is getting new tasers and an updated records management system.

At Monday’s Baraga County board meeting, commissioners approved the purchase of a new records system and also voted to clarify where the funding will come from for taser purchases previously approved in February.

The tasers, which can be used 10 times without needing to be reloaded, cost $5,074.40 annually for the next five years.

Funding for the tasers predominantly comes from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, a program under the American Rescue Plan Act. Baraga County was allocated $117,479 in both the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years, according to Department of Treasury figures.

Money through that program must be spent by the end of 2027. The final installment in 2028 will be covered by county funds.

The department approved partnering with CORE Technologies for the updated records system, which will combine into one system what is now split among three.

“We use (Law Enforcement Information Network), and then when we go into our records management, they’re two completely different deals,” Sheriff Joe Brogan said. “You get things out of one, enter it into another and manually enter that information. It’s cumbersome, it’s a waste of time and a waste of paper. LEIN is classified information. You have to print it off, manually enter it into our report, and then take the pages you just printed and put them through a shredder.”

Brogan said the plan is for all law enforcement agencies in the county to convert to the same system.

The county will pay $85,000 in one-time costs for software licensing, installation, configuration and data conversion.

Annual costs for the program will run around $13,000. That’s about $4,000 more than the county was paying for three separate programs, but Brogan said the higher efficiency will be worth it.

“There’s going to be a lot less paper documents, there’s going to be a lot less wasted time manually entering information,” he said. “It’s going to cut our desk time considerably.”

In other action, the board:

• Reappointed Kate Beer and Carole LaPointe to six-year terms on the Baraga County Memorial Hospital board.

• Passed a resolution opposing Public Act 233, which moves the authority to approve large solar and wind energy installations from local boards to the Michigan Public Service Commission. Signed into law last year, the bill takes effect Nov. 29.

• Approved a resolution to enter into an interlocal operating agreement for materials management planning with Baraga, Gogebic, Houghton, Iron and Keweenaw counties. Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region was designated as planning agency.