On September 15, the Moorhead MN Police Department published — via public records request, not voluntarily — the first publicly available head-to-head comparison between two ALPR contracts for the same city.

Flock Safety 2025: $29,300 for year one of a two-year contract. Seven Falcon cameras at $3,000 each, plus one solar-powered long-range Falcon, plus installation and implementation [1].

Axon Enterprise 2026: $136,056.61 over 5 years = ~$27,211/year. Outpost + Lightpost cameras + Vehicle Intelligence LPR software + installation + multi-year maintenance included. Five annual payments beginning January 2027 [1].

( the Jan 30, 2025 invoice that Moorhead did publish voluntarily; the underlying signed contract — not yet )

The per-year price gap is $2,089 lower with Axon — ~7% per year, with five years of installation and maintenance rolled in. Real, but not enormous.

The bigger story is different. The city had to file a records request to obtain the competitor’s quote. NASCIO documented in 2025 that “there is frequently a lack of transparency from the states on status and timelines for posting and award,” and that the default selection mode still evaluates “the cheapest bid without consideration of other factors” [4].

Every CCTV / ALPR / VMS RFP you signed last year delivered one proposal — the one the vendor presented. It didn’t deliver the runner-up’s.

P.D. Does your next CCTV / ALPR / VMS RFP ask the incumbent for a head-to-head comparison with the runner-up — same document, same line items, before signature? If the answer is “I don’t know” or “no,” today is a good day to revisit the question.

📰 Sources: Valley News Live + WDAY Radio Now (Sep 15, 2026) + NASCIO Demystifying State Technology Procurement 2025 + NASCIO-NASPO Leveraging the RFP Brief.

Sources

[1] Valley News Live — Moorhead Police may drop Flock Safety ALPR cameras (Sep 15, 2026) — https://www.valleynewslive.com/2026/09/15/moorhead-police-may-drop-flock-safety-alpr-cameras [2] WDAY Radio Now — Moorhead Police may drop Flock Safety ALPR cameras (Sep 15, 2026) — https://www.wdayradionow.com/news/local-news/moorhead-police-may-drop-flock-safety-alpr-cameras [3] NASCIO Demystifying State Technology Procurement 2025 — https://www.nascio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/NASCIO_Demystifying-State-Technology-Procurement_2025_a11y.pdf [4] NASCIO-NASPO Leveraging the RFP Research Brief — https://www.nascio.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/NASCIO-leveragingRFP.pdf [5] NASPO 2024 Survey of State Procurement Practices Executive Summary — https://cdn.naspo.org/RI/2024SurveyofStatePracticesExecutiveSummary.pdf