A three-year effort to replace and upgrade Bartholomew County’s 911 system is nearly complete.
An eight-year agreement with AT&T to serve as the system’s network provider was approved Monday by the Bartholomew County commissioners. The contract is still subject to final approval by county attorney Grant Tucker, who has been negotiating with AT&T for several months.
But once the agreement is signed by both parties, it will take about four months before the new state-of-the-art system is installed, 911 Emergency Operations Center director Todd Noblitt said. Training could take up to two months.
That’s none too soon because the 10-year-old system is near the end of its life, Noblitt said.
“In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had about 10 meetings with the AT&T techs,” Noblitt said. “There are parts used by the current system that are no longer being manufactured.”
Describing the new $1.2 million system as a “Next Gen” model, Noblitt said it is capable not only of pinpointing where an interrupted emergency call was made, but also what floor of a building the caller was on. There are other new features the new system can provide if the county chooses to implement them.
In a separate contract, the center is also investing $50,000 into a new recording system, Noblitt said.
After local officials realized in 2017 that the current 911 equipment would need to be replaced, city and county officials have been working with Noblitt on long-term financial planning.
A federal grant was obtained that will provide $450,000, while the state of Indiana agreed to pick up networking and routing call fees that will amount to more than $400,000 over the next eight years.
In addition, Noblitt said his office was able to set aside $327,000 from the 2019 salaries and communications fund to invest in the system.
The remaining balance will be picked up by the city and county. Since payments to the center are based on population size, the city of Columbus will pay about $165,000 (55%), while the county will be responsible for $135,000 (45%), Noblitt said.
“So this entire project will be 100% paid off once this agreement is utilized,” Noblitt said.
Since the existing system cost $1.5 million when it was purchased in 2010, some local officials initially worried the price tag for the new system would be much higher.
But after the county hired consultant Barry Ritter of Hagerstown for $6,000 two years ago, the consultant was able to use his contacts to acquire the Next Gen emergency phone system for 20% less than what the old system cost, Noblitt said.
Ritter served as executive director of the Indiana Statewide 911 Board until his 2017 retirement.
