Bartholomew County officials now know how they will pay for a new 911 emergency phone system for the county.
County taxpayers won’t have to pay anything more than what has already been allocated, said Todd Noblitt, director of the county’s 911 Emergency Operations Center.
When the Bartholomew County commissioners were alerted that the current 911 emergency phone system was near the end of its life, Noblitt said there were two prevailing worries late in 2017.
Since the existing system cost $1.5 million when it was purchased in 2010, some local officials assumed that the price tag for a new system today would be much higher, Noblitt said.
And since technical support and replacement parts will no longer be available for the current system starting in January, local officials knew postponing the costly purchase was not an option, he said.
Nevertheless, a plan was created that seems to have worked out better than anyone could have expected two years ago, Noblitt said.
First, the county set aside $6,000 in the 2018 budget to hire consultant Barry Ritter of Hagerstown to assist in the upgrade. Ritter served as executive director of the Indiana Statewide 911 Board until his 2017 retirement.
That consulting investment more than paid for itself when Ritter used his contacts to acquire a new 911 emergency phone system for $1.2 million — 20% less than what the old system cost nearly a decade ago, Noblitt said.
Ritter was also instrumental in working out an eight-year contract with AT&T as the new system’s network provider, Noblitt said. That agreement is now being reviewed by county attorney Grant Tucker before it is presented to the Bartholomew County commissioners for their consideration.
Last year, the county applied for a federal grant, and was awarded $445,000 to help fund the project, the 911 center director said. In addition, the state of Indiana agreed to pick up networking and routing call fees that will amount to over $400,000 over the next eight years, Noblitt said.
After a few smaller grants were sought and approved, only a $325,000 balance remained that will be split between the city and county, Noblitt said.
And even that has already been taken care of. Over the last two years, the Emergency Operations Center has been prioritizing projects and limiting spending, in order to save money for the new system, he said. With the end of 2019 just around the corner, the center is now placing all of its savings into one account for the purchase.
That’s what the center was doing Tuesday when the Bartholomew County Council approved transferring unspent money from its salaries and communications fund into the emergency phone system account.
If the council did not approve that transfer, the unspent money in the salaries and communications fund would have reverted back to general funds accounts, Noblitt said.
With funding concerns behind them, the new system should be online following a six-month period of installation and staff training, he said.
