The Shawano County Dispatch Center was awarded an over $700,000 grant for new equipment, but elected officials have to sign off on it first as it comes with a need for county funds that aren’t part of the current budget.
The grant is from Round 2 of the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs Office of Emergency Communications PSAP Grant. The application was due in February and awarded May 1.
The grant award total budget is $705,829, and the county would be responsible for a 10% match.
“It sounds strange to say only $70,582.90,” said Kasey Cross, communications supervisor. “I am a taxpayer in this county, too. I don’t want to do anything that is going to put more strain on taxpayers than what we already have to contend with.”
The total of the remaining 90% is $635,246.10.
Grant money will help cover the costs of upgrades to the dispatch radio consoles and backup consolettes, upgrades to the phone system and an online subscription to improve the efficiencies of mutual aid fire dispatching.
“The new console that they’re offering us will bring us up to speed, keep us in communication with our patrol guys, link to our surrounding counties that have that technology built in already,” Cross said.
Upgrades to the dispatch consoles will better incorporate the tools that are available with the radio upgrade the sheriff’s department did in January.
“Our current equipment does still function but not as seamlessly as it would if we complete the dispatch equipment updates,” Cross said. “For our dispatch center to communicate with neighboring counties that do not operate on the same frequencies that we do, we have to set up radio patches to make communication possible. Thankfully, it is not something that we have to do often, but in the event that something critical takes place, establishing the patch takes time and background coordination to make sure the correct channels are selected.”
For Shawano County deputies using the new portables that came along with the January upgrade, the radio service created some permanent patches on existing consoles so they can stay in contact with dispatchers regardless of what frequency the deputy is using.
“We have had a few hiccups with the setup when we’ve lost the connection briefly and have one console (out of our five total consoles) that is programmed to maintain the patch connection and cannot be used to page fire and EMS responders,” Cross said.
The dispatch center currently operates on the Motorola Callworks platform and has about five years left on a contract with the company.
Motorola has decided to discontinue development of the Callworks system, but it is contractually obligated to honor the contract.
“What Motorola has told us moving forward, they’re not going to be supporting (the phone system),” Cross said. “Within another five years, we have to get a new one. It’s not an option. We have to do something.”
Motorola is investing development in its cloud-based Vesta products, which is what is being offered to the county now.
“Their proposal takes into consideration what we have already paid for Callworks and applies credits toward all of the equipment that would be needed to complete the transition,” Cross said. “This amounts to considerable savings now.”
The county has the option to continue with the remainder of its Callworks contract and not spend anything, but at the end of the contract, it would have to decide a next step.
“I don’t have numbers on what the cost would be without the credits, but a quote I received about a year ago on the previous version of Vesta was in excess of $500,000,” Cross said.
Finally, the grant would cover a subscription to the HIEBA software application specifically related to mutual aid for fire dispatching.
Cross explained how the program works now.
“Every department has cards for different scene circumstances with the agency and equipment they will need,” she said. “This saves them time to just call out a card number instead of a drawn out list over the radio of who and what they want. Dispatch has a copy of every Shawano County fire department card set. Once they call out a card, we go to that particular card and contact the responders needed.
“Currently, we have 198 cards that cover all the departments in our county, and the cards are kept in a 2½-inch binder at each of our five dispatch stations.”
She said that while the current process is functional, it is also time consuming to make sure the correct columns and rows are read.
HIEBA would put all of that data into a platform that will compile the pieces needed to a script, so dispatchers can get the responders mobilized faster and ideally eliminate errors.
“Ultimately, these are all things that we have learned to function without, and we can find work-arounds to continue our daily activities, but at what cost?” asked Cross. “Technological advancements keep going, much like when you buy any piece of tech — leave the store and it’s probably already outdated. I want to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to keep everyone safe and at a price that is more palatable, with the grant covering 90% of the total.”
The county’s public safety committee agreed May 6 to accept the grant and forward it to another committee.
“Obviously, because it’s not in the budget, it’ll have to go to exec (executive committee) to find the money,” said Steve Natzke, the new committee chairman.
