CASS COUNTY — At the Edwardsburg Village board meeting on Monday, the Cass County Sheriff, Rick Behnke, spoke on the upcoming millage for the county’s 911 Dispatch Center that he said funds nearly half of its budget.

The millage renewal will be on the ballot for the upcoming Michigan primary elections on Aug. 7. It is for two-tenths of a mill, which comes out to $20 in winter property taxes for a home with $100,000 of taxable value. He said this will fund the center with about $480,000 per year of its overall $980,000 budget.

“We fund the 911 center with the property tax millage, as well as a phone surcharge through the state,” Behnke said. “Being a border county, a lot of people don’t have phones that are registered in Michigan. … That’s why we enacted the 911 property tax millage.  This will be the third renewal. Every four years, we ask for a renewal on that 911 millage.”

Cass County has had a 911 service center since 1992, and according to Behnke, it has been improved significantly over the years.

“The 911 service in Cass County needs [this money] to continue providing to services we need to provide,” he said.

Most of the improvements that he says the center has made were done by adding new and updated technology. This includes a new system that helps them more easily communicate with police departments in other counties.

That’s important because if the Cass County 911 Center loses power, 911 calls will then be transferred to Van Buren County.

“They can simply get on a radio and start dispatching … as we can do with them,” he said.

Another improvement the center made is adding a new, computerized dispatch system that helps dispatchers coordinate service calls to police officers, the fire department and ambulances services.

While the 911 center has made several updates, Behnke said that it is also frugal with the money it receives.

“Now, to give you an idea, the last time we updated [our 911 phone system] was 1999,” he said. “So 18 years we waited to upgrade that phone system. It shows that we are really judicious in how we use the money and we spend it wisely.”

With this upgrade, community members can now text dispatchers, which can be advantageous in situations where someone is unable to talk on a phone or is hearing impaired.

“The other thing they can do is the dispatchers can text back, which has become a very valuable tool for them,” he said. “When they get a 911 hang-up call, they have to try to figure out what happened with that hang-up. They call it back if nobody answers, but now they can text back and people tend to answer a whole lot more if they called by mistake or something like that.”

The center also added a program called SMART911. This service allows people log SMART911.com, create an account and upload information about themselves or their home to their phone number for dispatchers to see.

For instance, if a house is difficult to find, the resident could upload a picture, which dispatchers can send to officers if they ever receive a call from that resident.

Behnke said that without the support of the community through taxes, the Cass County 911 Dispatch Center would not be able to offer all of the services that it does.

“All we ask is that you support us in the 911 millage renewal on Aug. 7 at the primary,” Behnke said. “We’d greatly appreciate it.”