That will start at the beginning of 2021 and services will be offered out of a combined dispatch center.
Springfield city commissioners voted, 4-1, at their meeting last week to allow the city manager Bryan Heck to enter into a 10-year contract for communication and dispatch services with the county.
County Commissioners approved the agreement a couple days later.
The contract states that the cost of those services provided by the county will not exceed $1,149,320 for the first year of the contract. Payment in the future will depend on the number of emergency calls in the city.
Heck previously told commissioners that the agreement is expected to save the city a little over $700,000 in the first year.
“The City of Springfield is still going to be customer and not a partner,” said City Commissioner Kevin O’Neill during the meeting. He said his problem with the current agreement is that he feels the city will not have a “real seat at the table” when it comes to the way that the dispatch center will be operated.
“The problem is that we need a leg to stand on because we are elected to represent the citizens of Springfield, the police officers that we employ by charter, the fire division that we employ by charter. That is pretty tough to do if you don’t have a seat at the table,” O’Neil said, who voted against the ordinance.
Fellow City Commissioner Dave Estrop said that issues brought up earlier in the process were resolved during the collective bargaining process.
Estrop said combining dispatch services will improve the effectiveness as well as the efficiency of those services for county residents. He said the savings to the city as a result will free up resources for Springfield that can be reallocated.
“In terms of effectiveness, this particular contract contains application of services to national standards. It is not left to the sheriff or anyone else running this operation in terms of standards they must meet,” Estrop said.
“We do have a way to enforce those standards, first through the advisory committee and secondly by withholding payment until it is arbitrated. We don’t have to pay the bill if we are not receiving the services that we contracted for,” he added.
Clark County Commissioner Rick Lohnes said the agreement is great for residents.
“Dispatching services are paramount to the safety of our citizens. The next generation 9-1-1 system being put in place will allow us to provide faster, more efficient services to the public. We’re thankful to everyone, including our staff and the City of Springfield, who worked so hard to make this effort a reality for our community,” he said in a news release.
Because of dispatching issues that can cause city 9-1-1 calls to be transferred to the county, and vice versa, the City of Springfield and Clark County have discussed a combined dispatch center for years, with some talks dating back to the ‘90s.
But in 2016, when the county again approached the city with more solid plans about combining dispatch centers talks broke down. So in 2017, the county decided to move forward with building the dispatch center on its own.
That $5 million facility is being built on Home Road in the former Clark County Department of Job and Family Services Children’s Home. The current 3,800-square-foot facility will be repurposed as an office and training facility while a 3,300-square-foot addition will house the 9-1-1 dispatch operations.
Renovations and construction on the 9-1-1 center are slated to be completed thisfall, however, operations at the center will likely not begin until a couple of months into 2021 due to the lengths of time it will take install the new equipment.
The center will house dispatch services for all Clark County township emergency management personnel excluding Green Twp.
Facts & Figures:
$5 million: Cost of the new combined 9-1-1 Dispatch Center being built by Clark County
$733,000: Estimated savings per year in terms of dispatch services for the City of Springfield if dispatching services are combined with Clark County
Jan. 2021: When city dispatchers will onboard with the county
