The Commissioners of St. Mary's County on Oct. 28 voted to approve a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Calvert County to begin testing and implementing CAD‑to‑CAD communication between the counties' 9‑1‑1 centers.

County officials said the agreement will allow automatic, real‑time transfer of calls and associated incident data between Tyler Computer‑Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems, removing the current practice of relaying information by phone and re‑entering it into a receiving CAD. “The goal is to alleviate the phone call… our dispatcher can start processing that call for service, enter it immediately… and they're able to start dispatching resources immediately,” Deputy Director Kiersten Shea of the Department of Emergency Services said.

The move follows Saint Mary's migration to a Tyler CAD in August 2024; Calvert County also uses Tyler, which County staff said makes the initial integration more straightforward than linking with jurisdictions on different CAD platforms. Commissioners asked whether the MOU would add operational costs; staff replied the primary implementation costs associated with the broader CAD project have already occurred and the MOU itself is intended to enable testing and live transfers.

Commission President Randy Guy made the motion to approve the MOU and the board voted in favor. Commissioners present at the meeting said the interoperability effort should reduce transfer time, lower the risk of transcription errors and speed dispatch for police, fire and EMS.

The county noted the statewide initiative will later consider integration with other neighboring jurisdictions that use different CAD systems, a more complex technical step the presenters said would come after initial testing with Calvert County.