LISBON — Texting is finally coming to Columbiana County’s 911 system, but probably not until January.

County 911 advisory committee members learned at this week’s meeting they received the federal grant sought last December to cover 60 percent of the cost to make the necessary system upgrades to begin accepting text messages. The other 40 percent is being paid by the county and the five other Ohio counties that joined to file the application. The counties’ share is $13,426 each.

Deputy 911 Director Brian Rutledge said the circuitry will be installed and then integrated with local cell phone carriers. The work could be completed sometime in November at the earliest, but that will depend on what happens with the COVID-19 pandemic, but he said it should be operational no later than early 2021.

The county’s new Next Generation 911 system became operational last year, which comes with the ability to accept 911 messages and photographs via texting from any electronic device. Additional equipment was needed to make that happen, however.

Rutledge said some of the grant money was left over, and counties were encouraged to file another funding application, which they did. The grant would cover 60 percent of the estimated $74,497 cost of creating a backup 911 answering center should any of the other answering centers become completely inoperable. The county’s contribution would be $29,798.

Under the county’s system, five law enforcement agencies serve as answering centers, with the 911 calls routed to their dispatchers based on geography. The answering centers are the Columbiana, East Liverpool, East Palestine and Salem police departments and the county sheriff’s office.

Rutledge said the backup answering center would be located in the county Emergency Management Agency building, which is where the main 911 system and routing equipment is located.

MAHONING,TRUMBULL COUNTIES

Maggi McGee, 911 coordinator for Mahoning County, said officials had hoped to have text messaging capabilities in place at some point this year, but the coronavirus pandemic will push that into 2021.

“I think text messaging will be next year,” she said.

McGee said all of county’s 911 centers, including the one for Youngstown, are now working under a new NG911 VESTA 911 system. That system “makes it easy for calltakers to receive and manage text messages,” according to a Motorola website.

But McGee said the county operation still needs a new computer aided dispatch system before the county can implement text messaging. That will cost about $300,000, and she expects that to go in this year.

The 911 system also recently purchased new voice loggers that record and manage all of the 911 calls the system receives.

“We are still waiting to put in the CAD system and records management,” McGee said. “The pandemic kind of put everything on a hold because it’s difficult to do a lot of that right now.”

“Text messaging took a back seat,” she said, adding there is “really high cost” of about $150,000 to $200,000 to implement the text messaging. Paying for that may take some more time, she said.

“We had such a big cost this year replacing the 911 system and the voice loggers,” she said.

Other challenges brought on by the pandemic are getting everyone trained on the new equipment and being able to get the industry people here to assist with the upgrades when travel is made more difficult by the virus.

She said Mahoning also is working cautiously to make sure it meets all of the state mandates associated with the new technology.

Trumbull County 911 Director Ernie Cook said his department has looked at hiring third-party vendors to set up a texting database for outgoing texts, but the pricetag may be a little too high.

“We are talking five figures to set it up and then yearly again to maintain it,” Cook said. “This system would be good to have, but really expensive to maintain.”

However, he said the county did receive a $50,000 grant from the state to implement a texting system for incoming texts so people can text emergency information to dispatchers. He said Trumbull was one of the five counties that partnered with Columbiana on the grant.

Cook said the county is in the process of replacing its 911 phone system and the inbound text capability will be part of that.

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Staff writers Ed Runyan and Guy Vogrin contributed to this report.