EATON — According to Preble County Sheriff Mike Simpson, the dispatch merger between Preble County and the City of Eaton should be functional by the week of May 7.
The 9-1-1 system was installed last week and the department is now on the Zuercher Technologies platform. The phone system was integrated into the 9-1-1 headset and the department is using one phone. The 9-1-1 portion of the merger is up and running, according to Simpson.
Training is scheduled for all users beginning the third week in April. Training will run over a three-week period.
Sheriff Simpson attended the Preble County Commissioners meeting on Monday, April 1, to discuss two change orders with Zuercher Technologies. The requested change orders included one for a Fire and EMS interface and the other for missed equipment.
Eaton Fire Chief Brian Smith also attended the meeting to speak on the first change order.
“The first one is a request from the Fire and EMS agencies in the county to have an interface that would export data from our CAD screens to the appropriate Fire and EMS agencies that are assigned a call. It would automatically do it behind the scenes and give them the information they need for their Fire reports,” Simpson said.
He added, the Fire and EMS agencies are ultimately going to pay for this expense. He proposed having the City of Eaton pay for the entirety of the cost, only to have area Fire and EMS departments reimburse them. The City of Eaton Fire and EMS would pay for half of the bill and other departments would pay a share.
However, as the change order comes from Preble County, the county would have to expense the money first. Preble County will be paying for the change order, but will be reimbursed the money.
The next change order is for equipment both the sheriff and Zuercher technologies missed when reviewing the contract.
“The other is some equipment we’re going to need and, to be honest with you, Zuercher missed it and we missed it. As part of the change over for the jail, it is just as simple as that, we missed the equipment we need,” he said. “It is a mug shot camera package, a wrist band printer and laminator — every inmate has a wrist band on their thing, it has their photo and some identifying information and a bar code.”
He proposed a way to move money in his budget to afford this change, but the commissioners said they would transfer him the money so he wouldn’t have to sacrifice another expense the department needs.
The board agreed to transfer funds for both change orders.
