The St. Joseph Department of Public Safety will soon have a better system to respond to emergencies now that city commissioners have voted to move forward with implementing Computer Aided Dispatch, or CAD.
Public Safety Director Steve Neubecker addressed commissioners Monday, saying Berrien County is offering to help the city pay for the cost of signing on to the newly souped up dispatch system. With CAD, city first responders will be able to see all sorts of details about a given emergency when they’re called.
“Computer aided dispatch will improve our response times to calls for service, it automatically identifies the closest unit available, improved accuracy, ensures consistent data entry and event logging, better resource management,” Neubecker said. “For the first time ever, dispatch, police, fire, and EMS will be able to see where every unit is within Berrien County that’s never occurred before.”
The Berrien County Sheriff’s Department and Niles Police Department now use CAD, and the county has been pushing other local police and fire agencies to sign on.
Neubecker said after the county’s total $11,000 reimbursement of CAD expenses, implementing the system across both police and fire operations will cost the city just under $31,000. He said the system will cost $18,000 next year, and continually drop each year after that.
Commissioners then approved two memoranda of understanding with Berrien County Information Systems to move forward with CAD.
