TYLERTOWN — Walthall County supervisors approved a service agreement for dispatching equipment Nov. 21, but learned more expensive needs for the dispatch office are coming while money available is dwindling away.
Tim Jones, chair of Walthall County’s 911 Commission, told the board more money is being spent each month than comes in from the state’s communications assessment program on landline and cellular telephones.
“There’s payroll coming out of our account that’s not coming out in other counties,” Jones said.
He said a dispatch, a part-time clerk and an addresser are paid from the account. The commission is also servicing $30,000 in debt from the account.
The mapping software used by the county dispatch is obsolete, Jones said, and will need to be replaced in the near future at an undetermined cost. The next generation of that software will allow citizens to text emergency situations to the dispatch center.
Jones described the county’s dispatch as “deficient” for not having a computer-assisted dispatch system. The CAD would be able to link with other law-enforcement systems and provide extra information about the locations and actors involved in situations if they have been involved in other calls to the center.
“All the counties and parishes around us have CAD,” Jones said. “Installing that system would be $150,000 to $200,000.”
Jones said the county’s 911 account now has about $250,000.
In addition to the software needs and associated maintenance contracts, Jones noted that much of the county’s equipment is also old, and the county needs to “try to ensure that our equipment is compliant in the future” with software needs and ability to work with other systems.
Board members also approved some communication and other upgrades for the emergency operations coordinator’s office.
New county EOC Royce McKee requested phone and computer lines and heating and air conditioning at his new office in the former National Guard armory, as well as an antenna for emergency radio service and some office supplies.
Supervisor Fred Magee said a computer and some emergency radios were stored at the Enon Volunteer Fire Department, but McKee told him the computer is obsolete.
Magee recommended that the office should also have MS-WIN radios that can communicate with county law enforcement and a base station for the system.
McKee said he would check on the condition of emergency response trailers based at Enon and at Dexter. The Dexter trailer is housed in the fire department building, but the Enon trailer sits outside that building.
He also said he would like to keep an antenna mounted at the Enon department as a backup.
Supervisors approved office supplies, communications lines and heating and air conditioning improvements for approximately $2,050.
