Lake in the Hills village trustees on Thursday unanimously approved spending $102,782 for nine police car video systems and 20 officer body cameras with maintenance warranties for hardware, software and license fees.

The in-car cameras cost $59,112, and the body cameras cost $43,670.

The purchases are a continuation of a three-year transition plan to have Watch Guard/Motorola Solutions in-car cameras replace a previous purchase of Pro-Vision cameras because those have recurring technical issues of losing videos and audio files, officials said.

“We already purchased 20 body cameras last year, and this year we are requesting 20 more to complete the project,” Police Chief Mary Frake said. “We started this process quite a while ago.

“The problems [with Pro-Vision] were difficulty in locating the videos once they were uploaded, and then to have some manual intervention to go find the videos. That is something we do not want to do with recordings and transparency. And at the end of the day, that is what our focus is, and that is why we moved to a system that has proven to be working.”

Pro-Vision said in a statement that the problems the Lake in the Hills Police Department encountered would have been rectified with its subscription-based evidence management system, SecuraMax, which the department opted not to purchase.

“While we respect the department’s decision not to purchase the evidence management system, a lot of frustration could have been avoided,” Pro-Vision said.

The in-squad camera systems are used to collect evidence while officers are on traffic stops and calls for service, provide training opportunities from situations captured on video, capture additional facts regarding potential complaints against officers, and provide an additional level of transparency to the public, according to a 2021 agenda packet.

The department wanted body cameras that could be integrated with the squad cameras for interoperability of the two camera types, according to an email from police spokeswoman Ashley Eccles. She also noted department efficiency in using one camera system as opposed to two, as well as the efficiency of having video storage on one system.

The village bought four Pro-Vision in-squad cameras in 2018 and five more in 2019 for a total cost of $35,500.

The Pro-Vision cameras started to have problems in 2018, with cameras disconnecting and videos not uploading to the server, Eccles said.

Officials worked with the vendor to address the problems, as all the equipment still was under warranty, she said. Pro-Vision replaced the equipment, but problems continued, so the village bought a different camera system – Watch Guard, now Watch Guard/Motorola Solutions – as recommended by its technology consultant, Advanced Business Network.

Advanced Business Network implemented the Watch Guard/Motorola system in other police departments and has extensive experience with it, according to the agenda packet.

All of the purchases of the Watch Guard/Motorola products included waiving the competitive bidding process, as recommended by Advanced Business Network.

From October 2020 to March 2021, the village paid Advanced Business Network $43,000, with a majority of the cost coming from issues with the Pro-Vision camera system, according to the meeting agenda packet.

The Village Board approved the purchase of 20 V300 body-worn cameras and the in-squad camera infrastructure from Watch Guard/Motorola Solutions on May 27 for $55,779, records show.

The board also approved $27,780 on Oct. 22, 2020, for Watch Guard/Motorola Solutions squad car cameras and maintenance agreements for hardware and software, records show.

Update: This article was updated March 2 with a statement from Pro-Vision.