WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners are considering a proposal from the county’s 911 director to add AI-powered features to the emergency call system to ease the burden on dispatchers by handling hundreds of thousands of nonemergency calls each year.

Tacy McDonough discussed the idea with commissioners during their Monday workshop meeting.

McDonough said she wanted approval to lock in lower prices before the software goes through a price hike. Commissioners tabled the item until their regular meeting today, as they wanted more details on liability risks and other questions.

McDonough described the contract with New York-based RapidSOS as an expansion of the free version the county already uses. It would include paid modules for communicator tools and nonemergency automation, requiring eight licenses at an annual cost of $41,304, or $194,520 over five years.

McDonough explained that the system could divert nonemergency reports — like barking dogs or utility outages — to an automated bot.

“It will determine if it’s an emergency… if there’s keywords that are mentioned, it will kick it over to a 911 operator,” she said.

She estimated the software could offload about 225,000 nonemergency calls annually that now overwhelm dispatchers — many routed from smaller cities and villages. For instance, a caller complaining about a traffic camera ticket in Hubbard could be directed automatically to the right contact and hours, McDonough said.

The 911 director said RapidSOS’s plans to raise per-seat prices three to four times after January.

“We want to get it before they raise those prices, and we’ll be locked in for five years at that cheaper rate,” McDonough said.

She said the communicator module costs about $3,900 per seat and the nonemergency one $1,800.

The communicator feature would give live transcription on dispatchers’ screens and would highlight keywords and offer real-time translation in more than 67 languages, from Swahili to more common ones.

“It will translate all that, and it will highlight the keywords,” she said. “So when we have people who are difficult to understand, it also does translation services.”

Commissioner Denny Malloy raised some concern about potential mishaps, particularly with vulnerable callers.

“What if someone calls, it’s an emergency, but it’s an elderly person, or a confused person or stroke victim… and then a person dies,” he said. “Is there a liability on us for that?”

Malloy compared it to frustrating automated systems people deal with scheduling doctor’s appointments.

“I used to be able to call just to make an appointment,” he said. “You got three layers of protection before you even get to that point. And I worry… I don’t want to see us with the AI stuff lose that link.”

McDonough told commissioners that agencies using the system for about a year have reported no major issues and have cut call volumes by roughly 60%.

“From what I’ve understood from the places that have implemented it, they’ve not had any issues,” she said, promising to follow up with the vendor and other counties before tomorrow’s vote.

Commissioner Rick Hernandez suggested checking the company’s liability insurance to shield the county. “What we need to do is find out… what type of liability insurance… so that the county isn’t held responsible in case of something like that happening,” he said.

Commissioner Tony Bernard agreed, wanting to weigh the pros and cons. He also added, “We all agree we need to get rid of those 220,000 nonemergency calls … to open up the lines for emergency calls.”

McDonough said the contract qualifies as a sole-source purchase, already cleared by the county’s legal representation, and that implementation would take time because of backend setup.

The commissioners also touched on renewing a service contract with AT&T for 911 equipment, totaling about $125,000 annually. McDonough called it a flat renewal, with the AT&T portion running through August and the Motorola software side expiring in March.

“We’re actually looking at possibly entertaining a different 911 system after the new year,” she said, citing high costs from proprietary setups. The goal, McDonough added, is to find “a better value for the county” while streamlining services.