• FURNITURE UPGRADES: We installed eight new Watson Mercury dispatch workstations, these workstations allow the Operators to easily transition from sitting to standing, the monitors height power adjusts to support optimal visual acuity, the worksurface moves in and out providing one-touch focal depth adjustment, they also include LED reading, ambient lighting and ceiling track lighting along with low-voltage cooling fans and forced air heating to give the operators a totally ergonomic work environment. 

• RADIO SYSTEM UPGRADES: The current Motorola 800 Mhz APCO 25 phase two "TDMA"  radio system was expanded from a 5 site simulcast radios sytem to a 6  site simulcast system expanding the radio coverage in the Southeast portion of Woodbury County. This system was also connected to the Iowa Statewide Interoperability Communications System, "ISICS"., giving our radio console a wireline connection the multipule Motorola ISICSsystem Cores. With being connect to the ISICS cores allows the operators to have priority communications over the radio system and access to regional and statewide interoperability talk groups. 

• SIOUX CITY FIRE RESCUE:  Sioux City Fire Rescue upgraded their analog VHF paging system to the Pheonix G2 digital didspatch system. This system is intigrated into our CAD system making it fully automated dispatch alerting system. The dispatch alerting system starts when a CAD call is generted and dispatched, the call goes out to the responsible Station or unit, fiber optics or over the 800 Radios system with a clear text-to speech technology, this allows the Operators to provide Emergency Medical Dispatch functions or other call taker functions while the call is being dispatched.

• CALEA:  Continue to make CALEA Accreditation and best practices part of daily operations so our agency is continually and systematically reviewing itself for continual improvement.  We now fall into a 4-year cycle where we will be evaluated annually using an online system of review.

• TRAINING: Western Iowa Tech Community College has a scholarship fund that has funds available for dispatcher training.  We need to work with the college to identify and schedule training that both our staff and other dispatchers in the area would benefit from.  It is a great opportunity to host training at our center with reduced costs and no travel expenses for our staff.  It is also an opportunity for those to attend who do not choose to travel out of town overnight for other training.

• TEXT TO 911  We can receive text to 911 but have not publicized it much due to the fact it is not available in bordering counties, within this fiscal year we will provide some Public awareness of text to 911.

• ADDITIONAL STAFFING: Through the budgeting process we were able increase our Communications Operator  staffing level by one additional full time Operator, the position will help relieve some of the overtime we have been experiencing in previous years.

• 911 SYSTEM UPGRADES: In August of 2019 the State of Iowa received a grant to modernize the States 911 network. This upgrade is to include video and picture messaging on a 911 call,we will work with the State to develop a plan to migrate this new technology into our 911 system.

• GIS MAPPING: The State of Iowa requires each County in Iowa to have a Next Generation 911 GIS data accuracy of 98% or higher on all data layers along with a ALI sychronization to the GIS Road Centerline accuracy rate of 95% or higher, our County has fullfilled these requirments.  

• ACCREDITATION: Continue to make CALEA accreditation best practices part of daily operations so our agency is continually and systematically reviewing and assessing its operations and procedures in the pursuit of professional excellence.

Woodbury County Communication Center improves 911 communications and emergency response through various funding projects.

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