Saturday is the last day of Rogers County’s first observance of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
The Rogers County Commissioners approved a proclamation at their Monday meeting recognizing the previous Sunday through Saturday as a week to honor the Northeast Oklahoma Enhanced 911 Trust Authority. The hub directs emergency and non-emergency police, medical, fire and animal control calls for all of Rogers County, except Catoosa.
Ron Burrows, District 3 commissioner, is a member of the 911 center’s board. Burrows said that at the board’s most recent meeting, Executive Director Darryl Maggard asked Burrows if the county could draft a proclamation.
“There’s a group that really goes unnoticed unless you’re in a crisis situation,” said Burrows just before he read the county’s proclamation. “… For them, that’s an everyday occurrence. Every day, they’re answering the phone with somebody in crisis.”
The Association of Public Safety Communication Officials has observed National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week annually since 1981.
Maggard said he was honored Rogers County now observes it, too. Maggard said 911 dispatchers are unseen first responders; he said they arrange for first responders to physically assist callers but are also trained to provide help over the phone, such as guiding callers to administer CPR.
Maggard said that last year, the 911 center responded to 33,000 emergency calls and dispatched 150,500 calls to the 20 departments it serves. He said it’s an honor for the county to give recognition to the hard work the center’s staff puts in every day.
“The number comes down to 24 people [who] hold the lives of everybody in their hands, one agency that processes every emergency call,” Maggard said. “Not only is that a lot of responsibility, but it speaks well for the people that we have here and their dedication that they have.”
Also at Monday’s meeting, the commissioners agreed to engage an accounting company to prepare the county’s Fiscal Year 2025 financial statement District 2 Commissioner and Chairman Steve Hendrix said up until now, the county has assembled these statements in-house.
“However, that is not going to be an option for us this year, so I reached out to a number of CPA firms,” Hendrix said. “Got very little interest, other than Hood and Associates.”
Hood and Associates, in a letter to the commissioners, said it would charge the county a $4,000 engagement setup fee and about $29,000 to prepare the statement. Hendrix said Hood already performs audits for a number of the county’s authorities.
Commissioners approved an expenditure of $177,800.04 to digitize 35 record books. Rogers County Clerk Jeanne Heidlage and her office have worked with a company called Kofile for the last two years to preserve old county records.
Heidlage said her office and Kofile have processed 100 photostat books’ worth of digital records so far. After the 35 the commissioners approved to digitize Monday, Heidlage said 35 more books remain, as well as 20 commissioners’ journals.
“We’ve got to make sure that we preserve history, and this is what this is about,” said District 1 Commissioner Dan DeLozier as he made a motion to approve the measure.