Missouri 911 Service Board Announces New Grant Awards, Expansions of 911 Services to 65 Counties since Award Cycle Began- New Investments Include Major Expansions in the Last Missouri Counties where Callers Can’t be Located when Calling 911.
Governor Mike Parson: “We are proud to have all Missourians on track to receive the modern 911 services they deserve and expect. These projects will provide lifesaving services to citizens and travelers across Missouri as well as help our first responders do their jobs even better when calls for assistance are made. We’re proud to do our part in helping improve emergency services in Missouri.”
Today, the Missouri 911 Service Board is announcing that it recently approved nearly $16.6 million in grant funding for 911 improvement projects across the state. The awarded projects will go directly toward expanding 911 services for Missourians, including seven counties that represent the last remaining counties where Missourians cannot be located when calling 911 from their cell phones. These projects were funded through an appropriation of American Rescue Planned Funding approved by the Missouri General Assembly and Governor Mike Parson. Since the ARPA Next Generation 911 Funding Round began, the Board has supported improvement projects in 65 counties.
These new grants will bring six counties in the Mark Twain Region (Bollinger, Carter, Ripley, Shannon, Oregon, Wayne) and one county in Northeast Missouri (Clark) with only a basic level of 911 services to Next Generation 911 (NG911) and Text-to-911 services. Currently, these counties do not have 911 answering equipment, which means calls during emergencies go to seven-digit lines where call-takers do not receive any information on the caller or their location, requiring the citizen to describe those details verbally. Once these projects are completed, two multi-county regions will be inter-connected and fully equipped with the technology needed to locate 911 callers and accept Text-to -911 messages from citizens.
“We are proud to have all Missourians on track to receive the modern 911 services they deserve and expect,” said Governor Mike Parson, “These projects will provide lifesaving services to citizens and travelers across Missouri as well as help our first responders do their jobs even better when calls for assistance are made. We’re proud to do our part in helping improve emergency services in Missouri.”
These grants will help bring Missouri’s 911 service in these counties up to standards seen around the country. In fact, 99.2 percent of the nationwide population benefit from at least the ability to locate a caller calling from a cell phone, while these seven Missouri counties currently contribute to the some of remaining portion of the population who do not.
The Mark Twain and Northeast areas are leading projects to create multi-county networks to bring 13 and 21 counties respectively, onto an Emergency Services IP Network (ESInet), providing a network connection among them, and allowing for the seamless transition of 911 calls and information sharing among them. These connections allow for life-saving services like 911 call-rollover in a situation where a citizen may otherwise be required to wait on hold until a call-taker is available. It also makes the counties compatible with future Next-Generation 911 Services, and connection to a statewide system if one is developed in the future.
“Many of Missouri’s rural counties have long been without the funding needed to establish traditional 911 service, leaving them with services similar to those used in the 1960s,” said Shelby Creed, Director of Linn County E-911 Central Dispatch, “We’re grateful to the Board members and staff who have been committed to improving 911 services for all Missourians, especially in counties that have been overlooked for so long.”
In addition to the previously listed counties, the following counties have also benefitted from this ARPA NG911 Funding round, including the counties of Barton, Carroll, Daviess, Worth, Nodaway, Gasconade, Clay, Ray, Jackson, Platte, Warren, Montgomery, Callaway, Carroll, Washington, Adair, Chariton, Grundy, Howard, Linn, Livingston, Macon, Knox, Monroe, Marion, Ralls, Lewis, Pike, Putnam, Randolph, Scotland, Schuyler, Shelby, Sullivan, Stone, Barry, Christian, Dallas, Dade, Taney, Phelps, Crawford, Maries, Pulaski, Wright, Howell, Douglas, Ozark, Webster, Texas, Perry, Dent, St Francois, Ste Genevieve, Iron, and Madison.
In conjunction with the Missouri 911 Service Board’s historic grant awards to bring the last of Missouri’s counties up to 911, the Board has funded 35 Geospatial Information System grants to create the maps and data needed to implement and deploy Next Generation 911. Those counties include Atchison, Audrain, Barton, Bollinger, Butler, Carroll, Carter, Clark, Dade, Dent, Douglas, Gasconade, Grundy, Harrison, Henry, Howell, Iron, Madison, McDonald, Monroe, Morgan, Oregon, Ozark, Randolph, Reynolds, Ripley, Scott, St. Francois, Ste Genevieve, Stoddard, Stone, Wayne, Webster, and Wright counties.
Since the grant program was established in 2023, the Missouri 911 Service Board has held four funding cycles resulting in $19.4M in awards to 80 counties. Awarded projects focus on service level improvements and increased 911 efficiencies, including implementation of text-to-911, emergency medical dispatch pre-arrival instructions, improved mapping, and interoperability and sharing of 911 services across counties. Allowable uses for funding as well as the funding mechanism, was created by the passage of HB 1456 passed by the Missouri General Assembly and signed by Governor Mike Parson in 2018.
“We’ve seen incredible leadership and commitment to public safety by those involved in these grant proposals,” said Brian Maydwell, Executive Director of the Missouri 911 Service Board. “This would not have been possible without strong collaboration among 911 professionals, including the Board’s own Scott Cason, NG911 Implementation Manager, and many other 911, local, and county officials who brought these projects to the Board. I would also like to thank the volunteer members of the Governor-appointed 911 service Board for their tireless efforts to enhance 911 service levels across the state of Missouri.
The Missouri 911 Service Board has a grant funding cycle open until all funds have been expended, or additional funds become available.
