The ball is back in the county's court, according to Senoia Mayor Joan Trammell, for funding 911 service for Senoia and Grantville.

Last June, Senoia residents learned it would cost the city nearly $100,000 for radio dispatch service for the city's police officers to use.

The city learned Coweta County would no longer supply service for free and the city would have to find an alternative for the police force to phone in field reports, such as drivers' license and tag checks.

“With the increase in calls, the county is saying they would have to hire at least five more employees,” said Police Chief Ben Thomas.

It's not emergency phone calls to the county emergency 911 system that are the problem, Thomas said. It's all the radio calls generated from the officers, such as running tags and plugging into the GCIC computer, he said.

The county was originally scheduled to stop the service in July, but Mayor Joan Trammell said the city was given until January to figure out a solution.

But Monday night, Trammell said the city had studied all the options and could not find the funding to start its own system.

Starting its own system might make sense, since the city could rotate officers to man the radio, but Trammell said a costly computer is needed to tie into the main system at the state level.

“The CAD system costs $150,000. This is not something we were anticipating,” she said.

The city is currently in the middle of building a municipal sewer system and Trammell said the money simply is not in the budget.

The mayor also said if Senoia started its own radio system that it might be in violation of House Bill 489, which calls for cities and counties to work together to prevent a duplication of services.

Trammell said she would be glad to meet with the county's leaders at any time to discuss the issue.

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