County Receives SHSP Grant to Help Fund CAD System

The Starke County Commissioners learned last week that the county is the recipient of a grant to help pay for a new Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system for the Starke County Sheriff’s Department.

The system would be $253,555 for dispatch, mobiles, Mobile RMS and InterAct RMS, while the JailTracker software would be an additional $55,394 for a total cost of just about $309,000. After the second year of usage, an annual maintenance fee will go into effect that is $23,597.

Starke County EMA Director J. Nier helped secure a $100,000 State Homeland Security Program grant to help toward the cost of obtaining the new system that will better update calls and information. In addition, the Starke County Probation Department will help with the cost with $30,000 in funding along with $15,000 from Starke County Community Corrections.

Another $50,000 grant is still outstanding for part of the system as well.

County Attorney Marty Lucas found a few things that needed to be changed in the contract that the company, Caliber, agreed to and the commissioners signed the paperwork.

A kick off meeting to determine the installation timeline is set for Wednesday.