Menu
Officials debate 911 call center issue
The Vernon County Commission, along with Gary Herstein, Nevada's public safety supervisor; Ron Peckman, Vernon County Sheriff; and Bill McGuire, Nevada city manager, met Tuesday Oct. 30, to discuss the future of area 911 services.
For more than a year officials have discussed the merger of both city and county dispatch offices to create one countywide 911 call center.
Currently, Vernon County uses what Peckman refers to as a call forwarding system. For example, if a call is made to 911 from Richards, it goes directly to a Rich Hill centerm then is transferred to the Vernon County Sheriff's Office. If the call is lost or the caller is unable to give a location, there is no way of finding the emergency scene.
This system is used county wide and leaves most residents without full 911 protection.
The proposed call center would be located centrally within the new Vernon County Jail and would offer actual 911 services to county residents with the ability to trace incoming calls.
According to McGuire, an administrative committee would oversee the operations of the new call center. This committee would be made up of county and city officials who would be responsible for the major decisions regarding the center and settling any problems within the facility.
Unlike the current dispatch offices, which officials estimate run 90 to 100 percent of the time with only one dispatcher on duty, the new center would have a minimum of two people on duty, 24 hours a day. A third chair would be set up for emergencies or heavy call loads and two additional chairs pre-wired and easily put into operation in the event that county growth required extra dispatchers.
Herstein and Peckman claim that the new call center could run effectively with 11 total employees. This would include nine full-time dispatchers, a dispatch supervisor and an 11th employee to handle odd jobs and fill in on dispatch when needed.
Herstein said during the meeting that the city has already paid for one seat in the new center, which includes payment for the Computer Aided Dispatch software license. CAD is the operating software that would be used by the new call center, which requires a one-time payment of $12,000. The city currently uses this software and Herstein claims they will be capable of training new employees "in-house" by the time a new center is open.
There are several positives and negatives to the new system according to Herstein. "The biggest advantage of it is you're not duplicating services," said Herstein, "right now if my center receives a phone call for an accident that's taken place at 43 and 54 it will come to my center. We've got to take the information and then give it to the county." The same is true for the sheriff's department. If they receive a call for the city it has to be taken, then all the information has to be transferred on to the city.
The new center would answer both city and county calls eliminating this extra step and allowing faster response times to incidents. This would also save on spending by the two departments since phone services and several other costs would be shared instead of duplicated.
"The biggest disadvantage is the cooperation between the two agencies," said Herstein, "if you have a sheriff and a chief of police that cannot get along then you have problems, but that's ended by having a board of directors." The board of directors or administrative committee is designed to handle problems within the call center without allowing politics or personalities to interfere.
With officials agreeing on most of the details, funding continues to be an important point of discussion since it is not yet certain if the initial monetary needs to start the facility are available. While the costs down the road for both county and city appear to be less than current spending, the startup costs would be significant.
According to Herstein they are looking into a bill due to be filed by legislation in an upcoming session. The bill will allow a wireless phone service tax of 75 cents a month which will be available to county officials for 911 services. According to Missouri Representative Mark Bruns' office, the bill is currently in the process of being written and is due to be presented at the next legislative session. The bill will be voted on by both the House and Senate, then depending on the language of the bill could be put into a statewide vote.
Once initial funding is found the city and county will need to effectively split the start up and ongoing costs for many services. One of these services being a radio tower to receive and send all dispatch calls for the area. A new tower has been included in the design of the new jail; however, airport officials have reservations about the tower's height and location. The idea of placing a radio tower on an existing structure, such as the water tower located near white grill was mentioned, but was not decided on during this meeting.
Once the budget has been organized the county commissioners will have final say as to whether or not the center can be opened. However, with city and county agreeing that this would be an all around positive service it is not likely the commission will reject the project according to Peckman.
The new county jail is expected to open around the first of the year 2009. The new 911 and dispatch center would be expected to begin operation around the same time.