Douglas County Sheriff Rick Trapp wants his deputies to spend more time in the field and less time on the phone.

By the end of the year, sheriff’s cars should be equipped with laptop computers, which will allow deputies to complete reports, receive criminal background checks and perform other duties that now require a phone call or stop at the Douglas County Judicial & Law Enforcement Center.

“We hope to keep our vehicles out in the field more and expand our technology,” Trapp said. “This offers a whole new realm of communication.”

Douglas County Commissioners on Monday approved a $442,000 contract with Motorola for the wireless communication service. About $318,000 of that will be paid with a grant awarded last summer from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The contract will provide the county’s 13 sheriff’s cars with laptop computers and the infrastructure for the wireless network. The portion of the contract not covered by grant money will come from the county’s 911 fund.

In addition to background information, dispatchers will be able to send deputies maps and floor plans of buildings over the network connection.

Although the Sheriff’s Office received the justice department grant, the network system will be used by the Lawrence Police Department, Douglas County Fire & Medical and possibly by police departments in Eudora and Baldwin.

Sgt. Mike Pattrick, a Lawrence Police Department spokesman, said laptops already in police cars, which have been in place for about four years, will be compatible with the new network system.

Jim Denney, director of the Douglas County Emergency Communications Center, said the system should ease life for dispatchers. He said deputies and officers often have to call dispatchers to receive confidential information that can’t be broadcast over radio frequencies.

“It represents a change in the type of work we do,” he said. “The amount of information-type (radio) traffic will be reduced. It will reduce the workload at dispatch.”