Berrien County Central Dispatch is looking at expanding the use of technology now in place at its dispatch center to locations all over the county so first responders can more effectively do their jobs.
Speaking to the Berrien County Board of Commissioners this week, 911 Director Caitlin Sampsell said CAD Mobile is public safety software that shows dispatchers details of each call. They’re thinking of expanding its use to computers, phones, and tablets used by first responders all over the county. Sampsell described how that could help police, for example.
“In our county, we service about 50 agencies,” Sampsell said. “We have 49 directly, and then we also have agencies that are outside the county that respond in. And as you can see, that ranges between police, fire, and EMS. We’ve got even a drone agency that provides a medical first response.”
Sampsell said because Central Dispatch works with around 50 partner agencies — including police, fire, and EMS services — expanding the CAD system would be complicated. Early talks have begun.
“I have to know how many servers they need to have, where those servers need to reside, is there fiber that needs to be put in between agencies, what kind of hardware is needed, how many devices are we talking about, all kinds of different things.”
Other questions include who would pay for expanded use of the service.
Berrien County Administrator Brian Dissette said having the CAD system readily available could help first responders get to where they need to go more quickly and accurately. However, he said a committee that’s been formed to study the issue is only in its earliest talks.
Dissette said they’re going to take a “deep dive” into the matter before anything proceeds.
