MANSFIELD — City council approved the purchase of software and related training that is expected to reduce errors when alarm companies send information to Mansfield’s dispatch center.
Under the current system, Alarm Administrator Dan Gregory explained, when a company like ADT receives an alarm, in order to notify the Mansfield police or fire departments, the company must call the city’s dispatch center.
“During the last six years, I’ve noticed several times where either the alarm company provides an incorrect address over the phone, or our people enter an incorrect address into the dispatch system, which results in us responding to an incorrect address,” Gregory said. “This software will allow those alarm companies that are currently using that software to send that alarm information to our dispatch center electronically and it will enter our system seamlessly, within just a few seconds.”
This, in turn, will reduce the number of phone calls to the dispatch center and reduce the number of mistakes, he said.
“The number of alarm notifications that this software will affect will be about 75 percent, with more alarm companies coming online every year,” he said.
The software and related training cost $39,605. Third Ward Councilman Jon Van Harligen said the money is available and has already been budgeted.
“All of the funding will come out of the alarm monitoring fund; nothing out of general fund, including the yearly maintenance that’s required,” Gregory said.
