Future of separate 911 centers unclear in Cole County

Cole County Commissioners are asking whether or not it’s a good idea for the county to have a separate 911 dispatch center eventually.

Cole County currently pays 25% of what the city said it costs to operate its 911 system.

Depending on how much the cost of upgrading that may bem decides whether or not the county center separates from the city.

“If it comes to the point where it’s not cost effective and they ask us to look into that, we’ll certainly do it and that’s where we are at this point. So we could look at, ‘could we do the law enforcement dispatching, which would literally be Cole County Sheriff’s Office, less expensively than the amount of our part that would go to the city?’ That’s the question we’re trying to answer,” said Cole Co. Sheriff Greg White.

JCPD, the Cole County Sheriff’s Office, and the Jefferson City Fire Department are the three agencies that use the center as of right now.

EMS has its own dispatch and officials gave input at the meeting.

“There are a lot of things on our side, logistically emergency-wise that we dispatch ourselves to and that’s why we have to own auto dispatch center because of that,” said EMS Director Mike Shirts.

Cole County officials said the decision will mostly be made on the cost of the upgrades and whether or not it’s worth it to the separate agencies.

“We have not made any plan to go forward with a new project, we’re exploring all of our options, we feel like we owe it to the taxpayers to explore all options and this is that process, we’re on a relatively tight time frame but we are exploring,” said Cole County Presiding Commissioner Marc Ellinger.

The commission plans on meeting again next Tuesday, but as of right now no decisions have been made.