EATON — Preble County Fire Chiefs Association members approached county commissioners on Wednesday, May 8, requesting a budget increase to the funds paid by the Preble County Sheriff’s Office for the integration of their reporting system with the county’s computer aided dispatch (CAD.)
Fire departments face challenges integrating and maintaining software.
A letter to the board signed by several fire and EMS leaders from across the county, noted, “Many of our Fire and EMS agencies in the county utilize a CAD (computer aided dispatch) integration system within our county dispatch software. This CAD integration enables assigned units and report times for each call for service to be automatically imported into each of our department’s reporting softwares. Each call for service that we take must be accurately and efficiently reported and submitted to the State of Ohio.”
The letter continued, “This CAD integration ensures the accuracy of our reports and minimizes the risk of errors when completing reports. Recently, many of our departments were forced to transition to a new reporting software called ESO due to a legacy reporting software no longer being supported. In the past, the CAD integration maintenance costs have been paid by Sheriff Simpson and were approximately $500 per year. With many of our departments moving to ESO, the cost of the maintenance for CAD integration is now $3,181.42 per year with an expected inflation up to 5 percent each year.
“We kindly request it be considered to increase the budget that these maintenance costs were previously paid from. Currently, many departments are without the integration and would greatly appreciate the financial assistance. Below is a list of departments who have asked to be added to the CAD integration for ESO.”
The departments listed include Camden Somers Township Fire & EMS, City of Eaton Fire & EMS Division, Eldorado EMS, Gasper Township Fire & EMS, Gratis EMS, Gratis Fire, Northwest Fire & EMS, West Alexandria EMS, West Alexandria Fire, West Elkton Fire, West Manchester Fire, and Verona Fire.
Gasper Township Fire & EMS Chief Andrew George highlighted the unexpected annual maintenance costs, and emphasized the need for a more efficient timesheet management system.
“Most of us use it in our fire departments currently,” George said of ESO. “Those are folks either utilizing it right now or have in their plans in their budgets to move to it. Most of us were forced to move to it because in the past we had used what’s called Emergency Reporting. Emergency Reporting allows us to create all of our incident reports, whether fire or EMS, and those are extremely important for patient care reports, how we get our insurance billing and also what we have to submit to the state for them to officially review and make sure we’re doing our jobs and we’re doing it correctly.
“Over the past year or so, most of us have moved to ESO because we really didn’t have a choice. ESO bought out Emergency Reporting. Emergency Reporting was no longer supported and really the only way that most of us can maintain our years and years of data — historical data — was to move to ESO. The other option was to move to a different software which is what Lewisburg did, and basically housed all those historical documents in a file locally. I do not like, and most departments don’t like, housing things locally, because one lightning strike or one power surge and that data is gone. So for the security of what we do and historical documents, most of us decided to move to ESO,” George explained.
With that came changes, including increased expense. According to George, ESO is efficient and user-friendly, and a self-explanatory software.
In the past, software annual maintenance was about $500, according to George. “It was a sticker shock when we found out that from now on that annual maintenance for the CAD integration is going to be approximately $3,200 with a three to 5 percent inflation on top of that moving forward,” he added.
Integration with the Preble County Sheriff’s Office helps keep track of fire and EMS times automatically, according to George.
The group expressed concerns about the functionality of free software provided by the state, being used by some of the smaller departments in the county, and further discussed the implementation of the new system, some expressing support and raising concerns about the cost and timeline.
‘What we would like to see is some assistance from the county. We’ve appreciated the sheriff being able to pay for it in the past. I know it is it is quite the increase in cost and we understand and we appreciate that. But that is the request,” George told commissioners.
Commissioner Adam Craft asked if this ask was for fiscal year 2025 or 2024.
“As of right now, we do not have functionality. We have none,” George said. “So the request would be for that to be paid in full immediately. And then it be budgeted for next year, that annual maintenance fee of around $3,200.”
The inflationary rate would also need to be budgeted for each year.
“On our end, we focus on the contractual people for Central Square because of all our stuff. This will be added to our contract. And this will be included in my budgetary numbers for 2025 to be able to have it, so for me, this will appear in my admin contract services line item, and it will be on the budget,” Sheriff Mike Simpson said.
If commissioners approve the request, it could take several months for the work to be done.
“If you’re going to decide to move forward, probably the sooner we can get something signed, and then they can maybe get this integrated,” Simpson added. Commissioners all agreed they were on board with the project, but being in the middle of the fiscal year for 2024 made it difficult to adjust the budget. “If you want me to see if I can move this from somewhere, I’ll do that,” Simpson told commissioners. I can have an answer in a day or so. We’ll pull it from somewhere,” Simpson said.
Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on X @emowenjr.
