The county commissioners approved a contract for software that allows the emergency services department to keep track of emergency responders and where they have already searched when looking for a missing person.

A $4,000, one-year contract with CalTopo of Truckee, Calif., was approved Wednesday, Sept. 11, after emergency services director Steve Bicehouse explained how the tracking software works.

The software uses a display map to show areas that emergency responders have searched by tracking their cellphones, and to show area searched by aircraft and drones, Bicehouse said.

“It’s a tracking software for use during large searches and large events to track emergency responders using their cellular devices,” Bicehouse said.

He said the cost covers licenses for 100 emergency responders, but can be expanded to cover larger numbers of searchers if the need arises.

The software has been used in several recent large areas searches to identify areas that have been searched to avoid searching those areas twice, he said.

Searchers will be given QR codes that they scan into their phones so they can be tracked, Bicehouse said.

The software was originally designed for hikers, but had been adapted for emergency service use, he added.

The commissioners approved a second contract for $225-a-month with Innovative Public Safety of Pittsburgh to add satellite communications service to the emergency service department’s mobile command post.

To get around gaps in cellphone coverage, the contract will provide the command post with Starlink satellite service that enables the post to pick the strongest incoming signal from a satellite or cell tower for communications, Bicehouse said.

In other emergency service business, the commissioners voted to reduce a three-year contract approved in June with Prepared to a one-year, $14,175 contract for software that allows cellphone users to send videos, pictures and texts to the 911 center; provides text translation services; and allows dispatchers to send texts to phones after receiving hang-up calls.

The same services will be available through RapidSOS, another software platform that will be used a multicounty emergency services project that is being planned, Bicehouse said.

In unrelated business, the commissioners approved the temporary relocation of the polling place at Concord Presbyterian Church on Hooker Road in Concord Township to the North Washington Volunteer Fire Department fire hall, 2225 Oneida Valley Road in Washington Township for the upcoming election.

The fire hall already serves as the polling place for Washington Township voters. Voters from both Washington and Concord townships will share the hall on Election Day.

Officials said the relocation is due to structural issues at the church, but it will be used as a polling place after necessary repairs are made.

The commissioners approved a one-year $26,000 contract with Butler County Community College to conduct the Personal Empowerment training program. The money will come from the county’s opioid misuse settlement.

The commissioners also agreed to advertise for bids to renovate part of the building at 107 Woody Drive into a morgue for the coroner’s office.

District Court 50-3-05 in Butler recently relocated to the building, and plans call for the coroner’s office to eventually relocate there. The county rents space for a morgue at the Young Funeral Home in Butler.