BROOKSVILLE — Bracken County will be getting a different 911 service beginning sometime early next year.
According to Bracken County E911 Director Rhonda Mefford, the county currently has Code Red, but the county is looking at a new system called Rave 911.
“Code Red has become very outdated,” she said.
Rave 911 is only $390 more a year than the Code Red system and offers much more, according to Mefford.
It includes Smart 911, Rapid SOS, text to 911 and weather updates.
“If I dial 911, dispatchers will be able to find me within 10 feet of where I’m standing,” she said. “Text to 911 is a big thing with kids. They will text before they call. This new system will allow us to talk through text. The weather is amazing on this. Code Red has a set number of minutes and this new system has unlimited minutes.”
According to Mefford, the Rapid SOS is precise enough to show the exact location of a person.
“When we did the webinar, it showed the exact location of where a person was standing in the building,” she said. “It will integrate with our map and show us where someone is located. Currently, our Code Red pings off the towers.”
Mefford said the system will also be beneficial for emergency management and will allow alerts to be sent out in case of a disaster.
“Also with this, you can link a social media account and it will send it out for you,” she said.
According to Mefford, the program also allows for medical profiles to be added by residents with all of their pertinent information.
Mefford said she will teach residents how to sign up for a profile on the system.
“I am going to go out into the community and knock on doors to help people sign up,” she said. “If you go to Cincinnati and call 911 and you have a profile, it will pop up.”
Magistrates approve switching to the new system once Code Red expires early next year.
During the meeting, Mefford also asked to have five full-time dispatchers, instead of four full-time and one part-time dispatcher.
Mefford said it is imperative to have five full-time, certified dispatchers in the county.
“All dispatchers have to be certified if they’re going to dispatch police,” she said. “They don’t have to be certified to dispatch fire, but they do to dispatch police. Currently, we have three dispatchers who are not certified. This is something we’re going to have to do.”
According to Mefford, the reason for no longer hiring part-time employees is due to the training involved.
“The training is five weeks and part-time dispatchers can’t leave their other jobs,” she said. “This is not an easy task-this is something we ask people to do and this is a passion. This started in 2006 and I don’t know what happened, but our people aren’t certified. In 2016, we were told that dispatchers who dispatch police must be certified or have a certified dispatcher with them.”
Mefford said she has started the process of certifying the dispatchers on her staff.
“We are no longer able to hire dispatchers who aren’t certified,” she said. “If we do, we will lose our dispatchers to KSP.”
She also told magistrates how much it cost to hire a person to be a dispatcher and if the county continues to have a part-time dispatcher, who is not certified, the county will have to hire a different dispatcher every six months.
“A dispatcher can work six months without being certified,” she said. “If we don’t have full-time dispatchers, we will have to spend money every six months because we can’t have dispatchers who aren’t certified.”
Mefford also discussed the average pay for dispatchers in the United States, which is $19 an hour and the average in Kentucky is $13.54.
“Our dispatchers don’t make anywhere near that and yet, they still want to work for us,” she said. “We need to get our dispatchers certified so we don’t all lose our jobs.”
The magistrates approved having five full-time dispatchers and also said they would look at the rate of pay in the next budget cycle.
