Jennifer Bristo, foreground, and Amanda Spells, telecommunicators with Lauderdale County Emergency Services, field calls Monday afternoon. The county Board of Supervisors voted to approve the purchase of the Naviline Public Safety and ONESolution software to update the 911 service.

The Lauderdale County emergency dispatch system may soon receive an upgrade to replace decades-old technology.

The county Board of Supervisors voted to approve the purchase of the Naviline Public Safety and ONESolution software for $1,165,415 on Monday, entering into a Memoriam of Understanding with the City of Meridian for costs.

The city, county and the Town of Marion will each contribute to the cost. Meridian and Lauderdale will cover the majority of the costs, Lauderdale Emergency Services E-911 Director Jared Stanley said in October. Marion will pay less since it makes up only 1 percent of the emergency service’s workload. The agreement still needs to be approved by Meridian and Marion.

This upgrade will benefit first responders such as firefighters, emergency medical technicians and law enforcement, improving the efficiency of emergency services throughout Lauderdale County.

“(Meridian Police Chief Benny Dubose) and I both serve on the commission and this is a project that we’ve dreamed of for six to 10 years now,” Lauderdale County Sheriff Billie Sollie said. “This tremendous advancement in technology is going to be truly exciting.”

The new software will include an updated mapping feature and improve communication between law enforcement and dispatchers. With the upgrade, officers and deputies will be able to look up VIN numbers and addresses from computers in patrol cars, rather than clogging up dispatch with the requests.

One of the most important aspects will be the ability to compile all of the previous encounters at a particular address in one place. When law enforcement, or other emergency responders, arrive at the scene they can see past calls from the residence – or business – and glean information from that.

“Now we’re still relying on ‘I remember’ us having a previous call at this residence,” Sollie said. “With this new technology that data will be stored and available to be shared, which will make each call better for the responders as well as those calling for assistance.”

The two-year process for an upgrade involved researching other companies and viewing demonstrations. Ultimately, the commission chose new software from their current provider, Sungard Availability Services, because it was the only company that could transfer all of the county’s previous records.

“That’s something we’ve been working on and working on for years trying to get it upgraded,” Dubose said. “The first step has been taken and city council will follow up on this MOU. If not at the next city council (meeting) then at the another.

“My next goal now that this is – hopefully – going to come through for us is to put computers in all of our cars so we can take advantage of this new software. That’s been the hold-up on getting computers in our cars because we didn’t want to put old software in the computers and then have to turn around and put new software in them.”

Dubose said money has already been dedicated to getting the computers.

Dubose said that having computers in the patrol cars would allow officers to issue traffic citations and do their reports out in the field rather than coming into the station or a precinct.

“(Back in June) I made the comment that the Meridian Police Department was in the 1980s as far as technology was concerned and I’d like to see that change,” Dubose said. “We’ve been moving forward I’d like to think.”