911 on hold due to lack of funding
Implementation of a countywide 911 system has been placed on hold until Ozark County commissioners can find funding to pay the system's monthly fees.
Presiding commissioner Dave Morrison said grant money has funded all of the work done so far, which includes readdressing the county and purchasing updated radio equipment for the sheriff's office. The readdressing is more than 80 percent done, Morrison said, and the county should be ready to send out letters in 90 days to county residents notifying them of address changes.
The entire county is being readdressed. "Basically everyone must have physical addresses," said eastern district commissioner T.J. Lewis. There will be no more HC routes and things like that, commissioners say. Instead each home will have a house number based off the county road, highway or street they're on. Private drives will also have names, commissioners said.
Morrison said he thought CenturyLink officials had told him the 911 service would cost about $3,500 per year. Instead, the service will cost about $3,400 per month, according to an estimate sheet from CenturyLink.
"There's no way we can afford that," said Morrison, "unless we can find some grants or something."
Morrison said the county is looking into funding options and also hopes to get CenturyLink to discount its rate some. The estimate was based on 3,000 land lines. "We're not certain exactly how many land lines there are in Ozark County," Morrison said. "That number may go up or down."
But just having physical addresses on all the homes and businesses in the county and naming private drives will be a big help in case of emergencies and in dealing with shipping.
"It's going to help just having the physical addresses," Morrison said. "And the sheriff's department is still going to be able to use the new equipment. And when we find a way to fund it, the system will be in place and ready to implement."
Ozark is one of only a handful of counties in Missouri that does not have a 911 system in place. Currently if you dial 911 in Ozark County, the call rolls over to the sheriff's department's main line, but no identifying information is transmitted except for standard caller ID data.
Once the system is in place and operational, dispatchers will have a 911 caller's address and other information on a computer screen when a 911 call comes into the dispatch center.