OSAGE COUNTY — Osage County Commissioners approved $39,121.21 from Use Tax for the first payment to switch the county’s CAD system from SOMA Global to CentralSquare. A second payment of approximately $27,000 will be due before the end of the year.

Presiding Commissioner Darryl Griffin said he sat in the 911 call center for two and a half hours during the Central Square demonstration and was very impressed.

“There was a lot of neat things about that thing,” Griffin said. “When they put that in the CAD system, everybody sees it. Everybody sees - the deputies, the fire department and everything. They don’t have to keep repeating (themselves). I talked to the people downstairs that actually use it, the dispatchers, and they really like it. So, I think that’s who we need to go with.”

Griffin went on to say Steve Smyth, a citizen member of the 911 Advisory Committee, had expressed concerns about what would happen if the in-house server went down, but was reassured to find out the system automatically would switch over to Gasconade County until the problem was resolved. Griffin went on to say that one person he talked to said the server had only gone down once in all the years she’d been working with Central Square.

Griffin said one of the deciding factors was that Central Square is already being used effectively by multiple agencies in Missouri.

“The Phelps County Sheriff really had good things to say,” Griffin said. “He said it ain’t gonna be three years to get everything up.”

Griffin also mentioned that the CentralSquare system uses maps updated by the county, instead of Google Maps, which can be inaccurate in Osage County.

“Thursday, I went out and put up road signs,” 911 Director Ron Hoffman said. “I used our map. I love that thing. If we add a house today, it’s there in an hour.”

“That’s what happened when they had that mutual (aid),” Griffin agreed. “Our ambulance was busy. Cole County come down here, and they went by Google, and they come (across) the red bridge, and then had to go back around the other way, and delayed it 15 to 20 minutes.”

“So, what do you guys think?” Griffin asked. “I’d entertain a motion to go forth.”

After several moments of silence from Eastern District Commissioner Jeff Peters and Western District Commissioner Dale Logan, Griffin said, “I’ll make that motion, that we go with the Square CAD system.”

Logan seconded the motion, but had more to say before the vote.

“I still have concerns about the amount of money the county wasted over the last three or four years. What was it? $142,000,” Logan said. “I know it’s important to the county. But I mean, how many more good dollars do we throw after bad and what guarantees do we have? This is the fix. And we continuously bring up the fact we’re a class three county, and we’re trying to buy software for a class one county. Are we buying more than we need? Just comments. I’m thinking out loud. It’s a lot of money. And again, I keep thinking about the $142,000 of our tax dollars that’s already been wasted.

“Maybe waste is a strong word for the last $142,000, but the bottom line is, we’re at $142,000 and we don’t have a product that works, correct?” Logan asked. “I’m going to be honest; I don’t want to vote for this. I do not want to vote for it, but I think that you’ve done a good enough job, along with the sheriff and (Osage Ambulance District EMS Chief Josh Krull) as well. I don’t think we have a choice. I think we all agree with that. I don’t want to vote for it, though. I know, but I think we have to do a better job from start to finish that we notice things that aren’t being done and performed at the level that they promised that they would do. That has to be brought up instead of that ball getting kicked down the road and next thing you know, we’re three years into something, and we got 140 grand gone again.”

Hoffman reminded commissioners that he was planning to submit 911 Advisory Committee minutes to them after every meeting, and that he thought the Central Square account manager should meet with commissioners periodically for an update.

“One of the other concerns I have,” Logan said, “coming from a technology background before my last 25 years in insurance, is you talking about the server going down. Servers are gonna go down. I mean, that’s just life. You know, you buy a brand-new car, and it may break down when you drive out a parking lot. I mean, stuff happens. We know that. Why isn’t there a backup? I mean, with a system like this, why isn’t there a backup server? Is that an option?”

“I might be talking about school, but I think there are two servers,” Hoffman said, but told commissioners he’d have to refresh himself on the details to be sure.

Commissioners ultimately voted to change systems; however, the exact dollar amount and which account to pay it from were not part of the motion.

The question of changing CAD systems arose during the May 911 Advisory Committee meeting, when Sheriff Michael Bonham and Krull asked members to consider changing CAD software again. They asked the 911 Advisory Committee, and later, Osage County Commissioners, to consider switching from SOMA Global to CentralSquare, at an additional upfront cost of around $100,000.

Although the county switched to SOMA Global in 2022, Bonham, Krull, and Hoffman said the company had not delivered as promised.

Before making the decision to proceed with SOMA Global, several county officials and personnel went to Ohio to see all aspects of the system in action, and were impressed with it. The company wanted to expand into Missouri and offered Osage County a significant discount to be the “flagship” account, which could later be used to attract other Missouri counties to the software.

Three years in, though, the system was still unusable for EMS personnel and not fully functional for Sheriff’s Office personnel.

“It’s functioning to where there’s no public safety danger,” Krull clarified. “I feel like we can at least safely say that. But it’s not working for the sheriff to do all the things that he needs for the jail and things, like he thought it would. And it’s definitely not working for EMS like we expected. We don’t have it in our ambulances yet, to do our AVL (automatic vehicle locating) tracking, our transfer management like we wanted, to alleviate the stress load off the dispatchers like we hoped.”

Bonham said he had to go back to CrimeStar, at an additional cost of approximately $5,000 for the year, because SOMA Global has not been able to provide the reports he needs, and was promised.

Another issue raised with cloud-based SOMA Global was the slow speed, and the fact that it is inaccessible every time the county’s internet goes out, which can happen several times per day.

“We actually have a paper CAD downstairs,” Hoffman told the commissioners. “(It’s) a piece of paper, and if I lose contact with my CAD and I’m talking to an ambulance, I just start interjecting onto my paper CAD for each call, right where we left off, right where we lost them. Then we have to reload it later.”

“A blue screen with nothing on it is what they will see, when you’re trying to figure out whose address needs the help, what instructions to give,” Krull added. “The web page just won’t load.”

“Probably the biggest deal in 911 is, if you’re taking a medical call, and you’re going through that assessment with the internet, if it’s out, it won’t load,” Hoffman said. “And we have to use our paper CAD. It’s called a pilot guide. So we have to go through the chart (manually). So they call in, (and we ask) ‘Is she conscious? Yes or no?’ That swings you to another set of questions, you know, and then we do that with the paper version.”

“And there’s a lot of money invested in the software to do it on the computer because of speed and efficiency,” Krull added. “So, if that technology is not working quickly and they’re having to resort to the old ways of doing it, then that’s ...”

The proposed solution was to switch to CentralSquare, which Krull was able to negotiate a 50% discount for. CentralSquare agreed to finance the up-front cost of approximately $100,000 at 0%, according to terms Krull negotiated with them. Under those terms, the county was required to pay $38,153.29 by June and approximately $27,013.91 in January 2026. The balance would be added to the annual payment for five years, bringing that annual payment to $65,167.19 for the first five years and $54,000 per year after that.

The discounted cost for SOMA Global is $42,000 per year, with another $5,000 discount offered this year and next, negotiated previously by Hoffman, because the company hasn’t performed as promised.

Hoffman and Bonham expressed how disappointed they were to have to ask commissioners to change software again. Krull said he was also disappointed, but wanted to make a change before the next payment to SOMA Global was due, to avoid paying for another year of their service.