Monday, June 28, 1999
Counties weigh 911 dispatch merger
Officials: 2 systems may be better than 1
BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — Officials debating the possibility of merging 911 dispatch centers in Kenton and Campbell counties pretty much agree they could save money if they consolidated.
From there, though, the debate gets murkier for one key reason: Both sides think their system may be best and wonder whether a new one would work as well.
Previous discussions about 911 mergers have gone down in the flames of turf battle. But leaders in the two counties are talking about it again anyway, and this time say they'll give it serious consideration.
“This type of work lends itself, I think, to consolidation,” said Tom Steidel, Covington's assistant city manager. “There are some economies of scale. But there are also issues of politics and other things to be considered.”
Tristate communities spend millions every year on emergency dispatch centers. They have to — the centers operate around-the-clock, must be adequately staffed to avoid the risk of calls going unanswered and constantly struggle to keep up with technology. That's why they're expensive.
“There's no question there's a lot of money involved in running a communications center,” said Kenton County Police Capt. Ed Butler, whose department now dispatches for 26 different police and fire agencies. “It's a costly service.”
With so much money comes contention about how 911 centers should be run, a question many governments have debated. Warren County, for example, spent half a million dollars to upgrade its system last year, all the while acknowledging that it was only a temporary fix. Hamilton County voters this spring rejected a tax levy that would have generated $63 million to upgrade the county's 40-year-old analog system.
Officials in Clermont County considered handing the whole thing over to a private company to save money.
In Northern Kentucky, emergency dispatching is particularly convoluted with seven separate systems serving the three counties. Only in Boone County are all calls handled by one place.
But that could change if any of the continuing talks produce cooperation.
“It's nice when you can look at things proactively without a crisis,” said Jeff Earlywine, Fort Thomas city administrator.
His city's system is unique in that it hires no civil dispatchers. Police officers take and handle all calls. That's a practice stopped in Covington, for example, in the early 1970s.
Fort Thomas residents love it, but Chief Steve Schmidt said it is a lot to expect an officer to be well-trained in both street work and dispatching. And he also welcomes the study of whether hiring civilians would be more cost-effective because it would allow the officers now tethered to a desk to get out on patrol.
“Dispatching isn't what it was 20 or 25 years ago,” he said. “It's a whole different animal. Now you're looking at telecommunications as a field all unto itself.”
Covington recently spent almost $1 million to improve its system, even though officials there could de cide in the next few months to merge with the other two dispatch centers in Kenton County and Erlanger. The expenditure was necessary, Mr. Steidel said, because the commission couldn't be certain of the merger.
The centers in Florence and Boone County consolidated in the 1980s — “it's probably the cheapest way,” said director Ken Schneider. The Boone County Public Safety Communications Center now dispatches for 17 fire and EMS units, three police departments and the sheriff's department. It's an endeavor that costs almost $1.5 million a year, not including capital improvements, and is run by a board of directors. Its budget is divided — the county pays about three quarters of it and Florence one quarter, with the city of Walton contributing a small amount.
The $1.50-per-month charge on residents' phone lines in the county pays for capital improvements, including the $1.5 million new computer system and $300,000 phone system installed last fall. Computers had to be bought also for all the fire and police departments involved.
“At times, it seems like you're serving a lot of different masters with a lot of different concerns,” Mr. Schneider said. “But for us, it's the best way.”
If the Campbell and Kenton studies don't result in any mergers in either county, at least the entities involved will come away with a lot more data than they have now on how the centers could operate more efficiently, Mr. Earlywine said.
“The bottom line is,” Mr. Steidel said, “when you pick up the phone and dial 911, there's an expectation that a lot of things will happen. We have to make sure we do this right.”
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