CASSOPOLIS — The Cass County Sheriff’s office was able to take care of business Thursday evening, thanks to resolutions approved the Cass County Board of Commissioners.

The commissioners approved two resolutions for the Cass County Sheriff’s Office during its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday. Commissioners voted to establish a new fund for 911 dispatch training and voted to approve a vehicle purchase for the Cass County Drug Enforcement Team.

The approval of the new 911 training fund, which contains $9,000, was a matter of necessary business, said Cass County Sheriff Richard Behnke. Each year, the sheriff’s office receives funding from the state of Michigan to run its dispatch center and also for training. However, it was discovered that those funds were not being separated when they were received by the county, so a new training fund had to be established for accounting purposes, Behnke said. The new fund will allow the money used for training to be viewed and tracked.

“They have to be separated,” Behnke said Thursday as he addressed the board. “This is establishing a 911 training fund, where all resources are coming from the state and back to us. This is just an accounting issue that we need to rectify.”

The fund allows officers to receive all required training, which includes 80 hours of dispatcher training, 40 hours of emergency medical dispatch training and update training as necessary, Behnke said.

During Thursday’s meeting, the board also approved the purchase of a GMC Terrain from C. Wimberley Automotive for the Cass County Drug Enforcement team. The total cost of the vehicle is $26,236, to be paid out of the drug enforcement team budget.

“This will be an unmarked vehicle to be used by a detective and the drug team,” Behnke said. “This will be very useful to our team.”

Also Thursday:

• The board approved a resolution to approve $16,800 in annual free online tax information fees and to charge a fee of $2 per record.

• The board approved the purchase of additional software licenses and training needed for the BS&A tax administration project. Licenses purchases include Microsoft SQL server licensing at the cost of $13,208, Microsoft Windows server 2019 Standard for $683 and Microsoft Windows server 2019 CAL at the expense of $1,200. All purchases will be paid through the tax revolving fund.   

• The board approved the 2018 Homeland Security Grant Program intergovernmental agreement between Cass and Van Buren counties. The intergovernmental agreement is voted on every year, according to commissioners.