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Denco 911 director updates Flower Mound on tech, training and funding pressures
Summary
Denco 911’s executive director briefed Flower Mound council on recent technology upgrades (text/video-to-911, location-based routing, live transcription), expanded training and GIS mapping, and warned that current state wireless fee revenue (50¢) and one-time grants may not sustain rising costs.
Greg Ballantyne, executive director of Denco 911, told the Flower Mound Town Council at its work session that the regional emergency communications district has rolled out a suite of technology and training improvements intended to speed response and support telecommunicators.
Ballantyne said Denco — the emergency communications district serving the county and participating cities — supplies and maintains 9-1-1 equipment at partner agencies, operates a hardened backup annex for continuity and has layered network redundancy so calls continue routing even when parts of the network fail.
He told the council that features implemented in the past few years include text-to-9-1-1 and live call transcription (with Spanish-language support), a video-to-9-1-1 capability that allows callers to send video to telecommunicators with permission, and location-based routing that reduces call transfers by routing calls to the correct center based on caller coordinates rather than cell-tower coverage.
Why it matters: Those capabilities shorten the time needed to locate callers and allow telecommunicators to search transcribed calls, improving investigators’ ability to find critical information such as weapon descriptions or missing-person details.
Ballantyne also described Denco’s training and accreditation work. Denco is a contract training provider to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, hosts Emergency Medical Dispatch certification classes, is CALEA-accredited and has launched an AI-based call simulator for realistic telecommunicator training and recruitment screening.
He highlighted community outreach programs — including an AED registry that lists about 95 devices in Flower Mound and nearly 1,000 across the district — as well as GIS indoor mapping the agency completed for more than 200 public schools and many facilities to speed locating callers inside buildings.
Funding pressures Ballantyne said the district’s revenue mix has shifted as wireline phone fees declined and wireless 9-1-1 calls now make up roughly 97% of call volume. The wireless fee is set by state statute at 50¢; while Denco received roughly $6 million in recent state grant funding, Ballantyne said that one-time grants are not a sustainable revenue source and that there is little appetite in the Legislature for a permanent fee increase.
Councilmembers asked how fees are set and whether businesses or PBX systems contribute. Ballantyne said most revenue comes through the wireless fee remitted to the state comptroller and reapportioned by population; wireline assessments remain small and there is no separate statewide PBX assessment.
No formal action was taken. Ballantyne said the agency is trying to manage costs prudently and maintain reserve balances while technology and maintenance costs rise.
Ending: The council thanked Denco for the update and asked staff to continue including the town in Denco outreach and budgeting conversations.
