Luzerne County’s 911 center is set to receive $1.3 million in state-funded computerized phone upgrades as part of a regional agreement with seven other Northeastern Pennsylvania counties, according to Tuesday’s county council work session agenda.
The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency awarded a total of $7.3 million for the eight-county shared phone system, with Monroe County acting as fiduciary over the funds. Also participating are Susquehanna, Carbon, Schuylkill, Lackawanna, Pike and Wayne counties.
The phone systems in Luzerne and Carbon counties will become obsolete the end of 2018, making replacement parts scarce, officials said.
A shared system will allow 911 centers in the group to quickly start receiving and handling emergency calls for each other if one loses service due to a disaster, falling in line with the state’s quest for “interconnectivity.” Without the upgrade, an emergency call center must arrange call rerouting through the phone company before another center can assist, officials said.
Regional purchasing reduces the cost because each county traditionally purchased its own system, officials said.
“This is where you start making 911 centers more efficient because there’s a limited pool of state funds available to help fund capital improvements,” said county Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik, who oversees 911.
Another benefit of the phone upgrade: 911 texting improvements.
Emergency texts to the county center must be processed through a third-party web system. Texts will be integrated into the new phone system, allowing 911 telecommunicators to immediately receive and send them, officials said.
A third-party web system isn’t ideal because texts can’t go through if the internet is down, resulting in a message to senders that the service is unavailable, officials said. When the new phones are operational, which should be by the end of this year, another county 911 center could receive both texts and calls for another county if necessary.
Luzerne County’s 911 center started accepting texts in July 2015 and received 493 messages seeking help or reporting problems in 2016, county officials have said.
The Hanover Township center, which opened in June 1998, provides police, fire and emergency medical dispatching for more than 200 agencies throughout the county.
Another major 911 capital project is looming — an emergency radio communications system overhaul estimated to cost $19.26 million — and it’s unclear if any state funding will help pay for it.
The county hired McMurray, Pennsylvania-based MCM Consulting Group to complete a radio system needs assessment and strategic plan.
MCM representative Michael C. McGrady discussed the urgency to switch from an analog to a digital system during meetings with emergency responders last summer, saying the radio transmitters and receivers that allow them to exchange messages will become obsolete in 2020.
County council members earmarked $850,000 toward upgrading public safety tower sites and improving radio communication, but they have not publicly addressed plans for coming up with the rest of the funding.
Proposed settlement
In other business Tuesday, the county council is set to discuss a proposed $12,000 settlement with Y. Judd Shoval to end his litigation against former county controller Walter Griffith over an alleged illegal recording.
Shoval filed the complaint in January 2013 based on Griffith’s unauthorized recording of their March 2011 telephone conversation.
Griffith has blamed himself for failing to research the law before recording a 2010 phone call with county pension fund officials, a retirement board closed-door executive session that same year and the 2011 phone call with Shoval, a member of the nonprofit CityVest board that handled the Hotel Sterling project in Wilkes-Barre, which failed to materialize in a restoration as planned. A Kingston Township resident, Griffith ended probation in September for his 2013 guilty plea on three misdemeanor charges of obstructing the administration of justice.
Griffith said Monday he has not been involved in Shoval’s litigation because it was handled by the county. If the council rejects the settlement, the litigation will continue at an added expense, the administration said.
“The potential exposure to the county is higher than the proposed settlement amount,” its agenda submission said.
