ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — A new 911 system is coming soon to St. Charles County.
The St. Charles County Council on Monday approved Bill No. 5236, which authorized the modernization of its emergency phone system in conjunction with the municipalities of Wentzville, Lake St. Louis, O'Fallon and St. Charles.
Whereas the old 911 system was designed to route landline calls, the next-gen system has been adapted to route wireless calls, which now make up 85% of emergency calls in St. Charles County, according to a news release.
According to County Director of Emergency Communications Jeff Smith, the new system is designed to receive 911 callers' location from their cellphone rather than the cell tower location. The more accurate routing will result in less need for transfers between dispatch agencies and, in turn, lower response times.
The next-gen system costs about $12 million, with expenses spread out over the next seven years for updates to hardware, software and call routing. Costs will be split by the county and Wentzville, Lake St. Louis, O'Fallon and St. Charles.
St. Charles County's capital improvement sales tax will fund about 55% of the costs.
According to the release, more than 118,000 calls were made to 911 from January to October of this year in St. Charles County and 98.7% of those calls were answered within 10 seconds.
“911 is the one service that almost everybody will need at some point in their life,” County Executive Steve Ehlmann said in a statement. “And when you need it — it’s the most important thing in your life.”
The new emergency phone system will go online in phases over the next 18 months.
Earlier this year, the county council approved an emergency bill to hire contracted dispatchers as the county worked to bring in more hires. Since then, a handful have joined and more are expected to bring the total to eight new dispatchers.
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