Putnam County 911 creating a new GIS System Administrator position pending the County Commission’s final budget approval.
Geographic Information Systems help emergency services quickly locate and respond to emergency situations. 911 Director Penny Foister said EMA Director Brandon Smith no longer has time to handle the responsibilities.
“What we’re asking for, and it’s in Brandon’s EMA budget, since he is now the full time director of EMA,” Foister said. “What we are asking for is we share a GIS person, system admin position.”
Foister said the county would cover the new employee’s benefits, while 911 pays for their annual licensing. Foister said the EMA’s half of the position is already accounted for in the county budget.
“Share it with EMA, us pay half of the salary, looking at starting out at $53,000. So that’ll be $26,500 from EMA, $26,500 from us,” Foister said.
Foister said her knowledge of the GIS system is limited.
“I can do very basic stuff,” Foister said. “I can add an address, I can add a street, I can delete 6,000 addresses at once. I’ve done it, and you never do it when you’re sitting here. You do it when you’re at home and then you’ve got to call someone, “Hey, can you fix that?”
Foister said Smith once handled GIS duties for both 911 and the EMA.
“We also pay for some support hours with our mapping vendor in Murfreesboro, True North Geographic,” Foister said. “We buy block support hours and whenever we need them, if it’s something over Brandon and Josh’s head, then they get on the phone with them or they work on something and take care of that.”
