FRAMINGHAM, MASS. (WHDH) - Massachusetts State Police unveiled a new GPS tracking system on Thursday that will help with accountability and safety amid an ongoing overtime scandal within the department.
State Police Col. Christopher Mason and other state police officials demonstrated the new Automated Vehicle Locator system, which has been installed in about 2,900 cruisers — almost the entire fleet with the exception of vehicles used for undercover operations.
“We’ll now have the ability to track historical time and attendance, so we’ll be able to utilize this on a weekly, on a daily, on a monthly, on a quarterly basis to conduct audits to validate that troopers are where they’re supposed to be,” Mason said.
In 2018, it was revealed that dozens of troopers allegedly put in for overtime shifts that they never worked.
This program was initially launched that year when Troop E was dismantled, but at the time, the tracking was based on the trooper’s laptop location, not the cruiser itself.
“One of the limitations was that we were tracking the laptop and the laptop could be removed from a cruiser and so we had a desire to hardwire the device into the cruiser so we had more efficient tracking of the actual cruiser,” Mason said.
The new and improved system also allows staff in the command center and out in the field to see the locations of their fellow troopers’ vehicles in real-time.
“It instantly gives the person that’s delegating or directing those resources the ability to have a good sense, ‘Is that perimeter sound?’ ‘Are the people where they need to be?’ and then if somebody needs assistance, they can respond,” Mason explained.
Each unit that has been installed in a cruiser costs about $15 a month, which results in just under $45,000 a month for the roughly 2,900 devices installed.
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