County emergency communications director details $17.9 million budget, NextGen 911 and radio upgrades

Jeff Smith, director of Emergency Communications, told the council the department handled tens of thousands of emergency calls in 2024 and outlined a multi‑year capital program to modernize 9‑1‑1 infrastructure and the county radio system.

Smith said there were 128,601 9‑1‑1 calls placed countywide in 2024; of those the county center answered 36,872 police‑related 9‑1‑1 calls and transferred roughly 39,127 to fire and EMS PSAPs. The department manages six primary public safety answering points (PSAPs) and a secondary PSAP that handles fire and EMS dispatching.

Planned projects described by Smith included: a $6.4 million phone/hardware refresh across PSAP data centers (the county share ~ $3.7 million); a NextGen 9‑1‑1 IP‑based call‑routing transition (total project just under $5 million; county share ~$2.2 million) enabling improved location data, photo and text reception; station alerting to automate and speed fire/EMS paging (one‑time cost about $96,000 plus maintenance); an AI‑based quality/coaching tool called Comms Coach (annual $26,000); expanded RapidSOS services to improve caller location and language translation (setup ~$8,000 and ~$14,000 annually); and a large radio system capital replacement estimated at about $16 million with related operational cybersecurity and maintenance through 2034 (operations roughly $8 million over the term). Smith said the county previously passed a resolution supporting bonds to fund the radio upgrade and that a dedicated capital‑sales‑tax fund is expected to cover bond payments rather than general revenue.

Staffing and budgets: Smith said the department has 61 authorized positions and was short six dispatchers at the time of the briefing. He gave the department’s 2025 budget as $17.9 million, with personnel at $7.2 million, operating $7.1 million and capital $3.6 million. Funding comes from a mix of the dispatch/alarm property tax, the 9‑1‑1 fund (which relies on an increasingly small landline surcharge), radio subscriber fees and the county’s general revenue sales tax for police dispatching. Smith noted Missouri law now allows local authorities to place a cell‑phone fee before voters but the county has not pursued that option.

Council response and next steps: Council members asked about options to shore up recurring revenue for 9‑1‑1 services and about the timing for equipment refresh and NextGen implementation; Smith said the phone/hardware refresh should be complete this summer and NextGen later this year. He also noted the county is an early adopter of some tools and is coordinating cost‑shares with municipalities that operate PSAPs in the county.

No formal vote was required during the briefing. Several council members said they would follow up with staff on budget and revenue options for sustaining the upgrades.