We applaud the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for plans to use technology to streamline its daily work.

The ACSO reports it invested $45,000 of taxpayer funds into the new computer system. Unless we’ve lost count, the new system will be the third computer system in use at the sheriff’s office in four years.

While spending $45,000 sounds like a lot of money, and it is, the figure is a fraction of the $109,000 computer system purchased in 2009, a system that deputies say never worked correctly.

It’s important to keep things in perspective, though. Technology purchases using public funds shouldn’t necessarily be only for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses. We hope and expect the new system, when fully operational, can help save some of the administrative costs the ACSO incurs.

Doing so could put more deputies on patrol or, if more patrol deputies are not needed, reduce the overall spending of the office.

We’re hopeful the ACSO will be among the leaders, not just in technology, but also in figuring out how to save taxpayers money while providing excellent law enforcement, too.

Is the county exploring ways to be more efficient by partnering with the City of Natchez? If not, they should.

We’ve long been fans of the need to merge the sheriff’s office dispatching with the E911, police and fire dispatching.

Having two, separate dispatching outfits manned 24 hours a day seems inefficient and outdated.

Surely as we improve technology, we’re also improving our ability to communicate between departments and share information and perhaps not have to constantly buy two of everything — one for the city and one for the county.