The replacement of the 911 phone system for Jefferson City and Cole County will take place sometime this summer.
On Tuesday, the Cole County Commission agreed to help to pay the cost of the upgrades.
The Jefferson City Police Department runs the center and Police Chief Roger Schroeder told commissioners the current system is 12 years old. By November, it no longer will be serviceable if major repairs are needed.
"When we last did upgrades in 2002-03 we were state of the art," Schroeder said.
The total cost for the upgrades is more than $297,000, and since the county pays 25 percent of the cost to operate the system each year, Schroeder said they used the 25 percent figure to come up with the county paying more than $74,000 for the upgrades.
The commissioners agreed to pay that amount. Where the money will come from will be determined later when a memorandum between the county and city will be signed.
Jefferson City Finance Director/IT Director Bill Betts said there is money in the city budget to pay for the improvements and the City Council will be getting a presentation on the upgrades at their meeting Monday night.
At a meeting of the 911 Advisory Board in September 2014, Support Services Commander Capt. Eric Wilde said this system is the same that is used by Cooper, Gasconade and Osage counties, so they have been working together on replacements.
"We are looking at making this a "next generation' 911 system," he said. "Next generation" refers to a national initiative to make 911 centers more wireless communications friendly - allowing the public to transmit text, images and video to the center.
Under the current contract, the county pays Jefferson City government around $400,000 each year to have sheriff's calls dispatched by the center.
The 911 center also gets the initial calls for the countywide ambulance service, and those calls then are forwarded to the ambulance service, which has personnel to dispatch the ambulances.