PERRY COUNTIANS WILL DECIDE ON 911 APRIL 7

PERRYVILLE -- Voters in Perry County will be asked April 7 to approve installation of a county-wide 911 emergency telephone system.

A 911 service was installed in the city of Perryville in April, after having been approved by city voters one year earlier. Now, county residents are being offered the same service.

Perry County Presiding Commissioner Karl Klaus said because the city already has the equipment for the system, it will be relatively inexpensive to install in the county.

All calls from the city and county will go directly to the Perryville Police Department, where calls from county residents will be forwarded to the county sheriff's office.

"We want to make the service available to the general public if they vote it in," Klaus said. "Because the city already has the hardware in place, we'll just need to buy the modules to get it in the county."

Maintenance costs will be paid for by county residents through a telephone surcharge.

The service proposed in Perry County is not the Enhanced 911 service that will become available in Cape Girardeau and Cape Girardeau County. Klaus said the enhanced system would be more expensive and take longer to install. The enhanced service automatically displays the caller's address to the dispatcher.

The Perryville police station will be the dispatch site for both city and county calls. The county would pay the city half the operating cost if the countywide system is approved. About 17,000 people live in Perry County, 7,800 of them in the city.

Klaus said if voters approve 911 in April, the system could be operational by June or July.

"At this time we plan on putting a computer near the dispatcher so that, when the telephone number (of the caller) is punched in, it will show the caller's address," he said. "This is something we plan to do in-house so it will take some time."

If voters approve the measure, a 4 percent charge will be assessed to residents' basic monthly telephone bills. It would be collected by the telephone company and returned to the county. The percentage does not include long-distance charges or charges for added line features.

The average monthly charge per resident line will be 17 to 37 cents, the commissioner said. Business lines will be charged from 37 cents to $1.21 per phone line per month.

Klaus said the charge cannot be increased without voter approval. Initial cost for setup is estimated to be $15,000 to $16,000.

"We're asking only for just enough money to get by with," Klaus said. "If the charge needs to be more, we have to let the voters decide that. It's the only fair way to do things."

Unlike in Cape Girardeau County, no mass address changes will be necessary for the installation of the system. But it may need to be done in the coming years, he said.

"Addressing in counties is something I see happening in another five or six years nationwide," Klaus said. "The Post Office will require it, and by then, we may need it for this service too."