Collinsville Offers Emergency Support
by Randy Pierce
As part of the consolidation of public safety answering points which accept emergency calls throughout Madison County, the one in Collinsville will be serving as a backup to Granite City’s, according to the county’s 9-1-1 cooordinator, Arron Weber.
This has become necessary, Weber explained to the Madison County Emergency Telephone System Board at a meeting held late last month, because the answering point in Pontoon Beach, which had been the back up for Granite City, is being shut down and combined with one in Glen Carbon.
This then leaves no alternate source for accepting calls should the one in Granite City stop functioning for any reason. Weber said that upon the approach of the pending changeover connecting Pontoon Beach with Glen Carbon, he “put feelers out” to see which PSAP would be willing to absorb this responsibility and Collinsville “stepped up” to act in this capacity on an as-needed basis.
With anticipation of a grant award to help fund the Glen Carbon-Pontoon Beach PSAP consolidation, Weber said he wanted to make sure the ETSB members know there is no absolute certainty those funds will be received with the application date for this being February 3 and the projected award to occur early next June.
Weber described this as one of the smaller hurdles, yet a valid one needing attention, that had to be confronted during the PSAP consolidation process which also includes making sure all of the call-handling equipment is updated to work properly when the new system is formally and completely implemented as mandated by the state to take place by the end of January.
Further mentioning that he had been in contact with Coleen Schaller, public safety administrative supervisor in Glen Carbon, Weber explained the radios procured for this new process have been delivered to that community along with establishment of an additional line for accepting emergency calls, pending the completion of the necessary tasks by representatives of two vendors involved, Motorola and AT & T.
More accurate and faster pinpointing of specific locations where emergencies are occurring is a major component of the AT & T “Vesta” system which incorporates enhanced texting capability in addition to the voice communication process and is included in a five-year contract covering the Glen Carbon PSAP.
Weber additionally noted that another aspect of the projected effectiveness of the new system will consist of the implementation of what he referred to as “talk groups” within each PSAP so specific teams of first responders can communicate with each other on their own channels without dominating the main emergency channel that, depending on the circumstances at hand, could be needed for something else.
Documents are being sent to the county’s fire departments for programming their radios, Weber continued, and there is a consultant he is working with on implementing this.
All of this action is being undertaken as part of a countywide consolidation of PSAPs which has also involved the one in Troy being and becoming part of one based in Edwardsville.
Weber projects that, by the end of January, all of the previous 16 PSAPs in the county will be reduced to seven as a result of a 2019 directive from the state level to pursue such consolidation.
There is a surcharge designated for 9-1-1 support on everyone’s telephone service bill, showing up on it every six months, which is collected by the state, that was initiated as a means of helping offset the costs of purchasing and installing the necessary equipment with a share of those funds provided to each county. The expenses for the county mentioned herein will come from the funds in its 9-1-1 budget, Weber said.
Connected with the aforementioned order to consolidate the PSAPs, the state is now keeping a much greater share of that surcharge income with the counties getting less. Another factor involved in this situation concerns how the previous 9-1-1 system components had become obsolete, thus necessitating replacement.
This process has been unfolding for several years, an original plan submitted for Madison County having been denied followed by an appeal and a request for administrative review.
What is happening with the PSAPs started on January 1, 2016, when the Illinois General Assembly’s adopted legislation, going in effect then, amending its Emergency Telephone System Act, repealing provisions in existence at that time, for the purpose of consolidating local 9-1-1 units in preparation for a statewide conversion to a modernized “next generation” system.
Most significantly for municipalities and counties, the new act severely limited local control of the operation and maintenance of emergency telephone systems by rescinding the authority of those government units to collect telecommunications surcharges and instead replacing them with a statewide surcharge while also ordering the consolidation.
That surcharge was addressed by Weber at the November Madison County ETSB meeting when he mentioned there has been some talk about increasing it from its current level of $1.50 per cell phone to an amount potentially as high as double that total.
This is because, he said, there are some ETSBs in the state “that aren’t as fortunate as we are, but we will reap the benefits even more from the additional surcharge (if it materializes).”
“That just means,” he went on, “we can do even more for public safety across the county.”
Individual PSAP managers in the county are very supportive of what has been happening, Weber continued, and “are really looking forward to the fact that they can finally hear what’s going on in other communities. They can (engage in what) we call predictive dispatching. They can hear what’s going on and predict that, okay, this agency is going to need some more help.”
Weber cited an example of the types of problems that will be averted as having occurred recently in Collinsville when an on-scene commander dealing with an incident was trying to make an important announcement over his radio and a page originating from elsewhere nearby interfered with his not being heard by those he was trying to reach.
“That won’t happen in the future,” Weber commented.
