The Poplarville Police Department was unable to submit crime reports to the state with their newly implemented records management system, an issue that could jeopardize grant funding if it is not resolved.

The Poplarville Police Department, like law enforcement agencies across the country, is working to become compliant with new crime reporting requirements that will go into effect in January. If it is unable to become compliant by the deadline, the department will lose grant funding that is helping cover the cost of the new records management system, according to previous coverage.

The department will need to submit six months of reports that are compliant with the National Incident Based Reporting System with less than a 4 percent error rate by January. Those reports must be submitted in a specific format to the state of Mississippi.

Officers input data for a month of crime reports and earlier in the week attempted to submit those reports using the new records management system, but the reports were immediately rejected, Police Chief Danny Collier told the Poplarville Board of Aldermen during a budget workshop Tuesday.

Before the new records management system was purchased, Collier said he was concerned his department might be unable to submit reports to the state because other law enforcement agencies in the state that use the same system have been unable to use it to submit their reports, according to previous coverage.

Collier said he contacted Agisent, the company providing the software, and they told him the issue was on the state’s end.

Collier also updated the Board at the last regular meeting that training on the new system has gone well and it functions similarly to other systems the department has had in the past.