Jefferson City Council approves agreement that looks to improve 911 response time

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Jefferson City Council unanimously approved a resolution Monday night that aims to improve 911 response times.

The city authorized an agreement between the City and Cole County for integrated computer-aided dispatch

Cole County implemented a new emergency dispatch system last week. The dispatch system can combine the Cole County Communications Center and the Jefferson City Communications Center to allow the city and county to easily work together to respond to emergencies.

With this new system, any emergency agency in Cole County has access to information, such as previous calls to an address or safety alerts. A representative said it would cut down the amount of steps a caller would take during a call.

"It's not just the police department, it's for all the public safety agencies here in Cole County, the fire departments, the sheriff's department as well. When we're responding to an incident we're all now joined electronically. So, any information that's being entered for that information or for that incident is being updated to us in real-time," Cole County EMS Chief Eric Hoy said before the meeting.

The new system -- called Intralife & Safety -- was approved this summer by the Cole County Commissioners. The funds used to upgrade the system came from the American Rescue Plan Act.

"This system was upgraded through the use of ARPA, the American Relief Funds, and the purchase itself for the software was about $1.2 million dollars for the county to join onto the city's system," Hoy said. "There was no purchase for the City of Jefferson because they were already running the software."

The national average emergency response time in a rural county is 7 minutes, according to the National Library of Medicine. Cole County EMS' most-recent response time data, which is from 2019, was 8 minutes, 9 seconds.

The city also unanimously approved three bills at Monday's meeting. It approved:

• A contract -- worth $1,244,046 -- with Burns and McDonnell Engineering Co., Inc. for Biosolids Improvements Project.
• A $213,147.32 contract with InfiniTech for the Storage Area Network project.
• A $325,918 Construction Contract with Don Schnieders Excavating Company, Inc. for the Westview Forcemain Replacement project

A bill addressing a subdivision plat for the area located in the 1000 Block of Marshall Street and 600 Block of Roland Street was also discussed. It was placed on the informal calendar for the March 6 meeting.