The Callaway County Commission and the county fire protection districts have reached a tentative agreement over the purchase and funding of a new simulcast communication system.
Presiding Commissioner Gary Jungermann said the county and representatives from five of the seven county fire districts - Millersburg and Auxvasse were not present - met Thursday night to discuss the issue and ended with a verbal commitment to move forward.
"Everybody's verbally committed to putting in a simulcast system," Jungermann said.
That agreement includes the $235,000 cost of the system, which is intended to provide better coverage and communication among the departments and the Emergency Operations Center dispatch, being divided up among the county and the fire departments based on usage:
•$45,000 from the county, to be taken out of the EOC fund,
•$7,600 from the Auxvasse Fire Department,
•$32,300 from the Central Callaway Fire Protection District,
•$19,000 from the South Callaway Fire Protection District,
•$16,625 from the New Bloomfield Fire Department,
•$48,450 from the North Callaway Fire Protection District,
•$15,200 from the Millersburg Fire Protection District,
•$50,825 from the Holts Summit Fire Department.
Previous variations on that funding proposal included the county paying for the new system up-front, with the fire departments paying their shares on a five-year plan, with the first two years being paid at one time.
That initial two-year payment was cited as a sticking point by a number of fire district representatives, but Jungermann said it is no longer an issue.
"We've talked to A&W Communications, which has the state bid through MoDOT - and the two year thing is not a problem because the first payment isn't due until early 2015," Jungermann said. "All will do on payment in 2014 and in early 2015 will do a second payment."
He said the new system will potentially be ordered this fall or winter, for installation in late spring or early summer of 2015.
Dale Dodd, president of the Central Callaway Fire Protection District Board of Directors, confirmed Friday afternoon that an agreement had been made.
"The only thing that Central really got behind was there needed to be a new system," Dodd said. "We need it, and we've got to bite the bullet."
Despite the verbal agreement, he said there are still many questions to be answered, such as who is ultimately responsible for the EOC and for the equipment.
"In today's economy, everybody is hurting and money only goes so far. My overall concern is they keep coming to us to finance EOC," Dodd said, noting each district is also responsible for its own budget and equipment. "For example, we just bought 20 new (breathing apparatus). That's $145,000 on a $275,000 budget, and now we're being asked to come up with the initial two years down, which for us is a little over $13,000.
"Every bite they take, that's one more piece of equipment I'm not able to purchase for the safety of my firefighters."
He said one of the good things to come out of Thursday's meeting was establishing the group of individuals present - one representative from each district - will be the core group to meet and discuss such decisions in the future.
"So hopefully we'll be able to get more done," Dodd said.
Auxvasse Fire Chief Nick Kaufman said he was not able to attend Thursday night's meeting, but he plans to speak to the commissioners and will present the new proposal to the Auxvasse Board of Aldermen at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
"I'll have to take the new deal to the council, and they'll either approve it or not, and we'll go from there," Kaufman said.
Attempts to contact representatives of the other fire protection districts were unsuccessful.