“Public safety and 911 dispatch are the most critical services that the public relies on us to provide,” Heck said. “We work diligently every day to improve the level of service and support all of our partners in meeting the needs of those in our community who need immediate assistance.”
Clark County Commissioner Rick Lohnes said by not combining with the county, the city is “wasting taxpayer dollars.” The county’s offer would have saved the city about $287,000 a year for the next three years, Heck said. Lohnes also said the city’s service cannot be as efficient alone compared to what it would have been if they teamed with the new dispatch center because city dispatchers can’t dispatch Clark County deputies and vice-versa.
“We are disappointed for the people who live and work in the city of Springfield whose dispatching will be OK, but it won’t be as good as it could be if it was combined with ours,” Lohnes said. “The city dispatchers do a fine job, but they don’t have all the data between the two systems that they would if the city joined us. The city doesn’t see what deputy sheriffs are in the city. They can’t be as well informed alone.”
The county government is building a new $5 million dispatch center on Home Road. The dispatch center will include the latest technology including letting residents text and video-call emergencies to dispatchers which will, in turn, allow dispatchers to better advise first responders what’s happening at a call, Lohnes said.
Currently, Clark County dispatch serves all areas of the county expect Springfield, Mad River Twp. and Green Twp. The hope for county leaders was that the city would decide to contract with the dispatch center and combine services. The dispatch center is being built big enough to hold enough dispatchers to work both the city and the county, Lohnes said.
Heck and Springfield Mayor Warren Copeland said the notion that the city is wasting taxpayer money is wrong. They said the county’s offer wasn’t good enough. Springfield dispatchers provide an essential service to the community, they said, and the county wanted to strip them of their seniority — which would have caused many to leave the job — and there was no assurance after three years what the county’s dispatch center would cost.
“The issue comes down to this is one of the most critical services that we provide to our residents,” Heck said. “We provide such a critical service to our residents it is important that our employees would have been a part of that and the way the county was treating them, it was not setting up a fair and equitable system for that personnel.”
Heck said the county’s offer would have dropped some city dispatcher’s pay as much as $9 an hour. He said the city did not feel comfortable losing their employees who have institutional knowledge and know how to dispatch Springfield police.
Instead, the city has spent almost $900,000 this year to upgrade its 9-1-1 dispatch equipment and Springfield Project and Emergency Service Manager Paul Hicks said the city will be ready to comply with state-mandated requirements into the future.
“The safety and protection of our community are paramount in our decision to maintain individual operations,” Heck said. “We are grateful to the men and women in our public safety divisions who serve our community with dedication and distinction around the clock.”
Springfield City employs 21 full-time dispatchers and staffs its center 24 hours a day. Clark County employs 23 dispatchers, three working supervisors, a center manager and a coordinator.
Lohnes said having a single dispatch center would have made the city safer and response times faster. He said it would have resulted in better communication and faster service.
Negotiations
The city and county governments have been going back and forth trying to figure out a way to combine their dispatch center for years. Lohnes said in 2016, the county commission tried one last time to consolidate services and combine, but talks broke down.
In 2017, with the approval of new Clark County Commissioners Melanie Flax Wilt and Lowell McGlothin, the county decided to move forward with county funds and build a new dispatch center on their own. The decision meant if the city wanted to join the dispatch center they would have to contract with the county instead of joint ownership, Lohnes said.
“We thought the city would come along because it would save them a lot of money,” Lohnes said.
But that wasn’t the case. Heck said contracting with the city and the cost of operating their own dispatch center wasn’t enough for them to make the move.
“We took a careful, thorough look at the options available to us with a mission to develop an integrated system between city and county public safety officials. Earlier this year, the city took steps to upgrade the 911 phone system and radio consoles as well as public safety radios, a technology that currently supports communication within Clark County and beyond,” Heck said. “After working collaboratively, examining best practices, and closely examining the data and receiving input from City of Springfield public safety divisions, the city has unfortunately not been able to reach an agreement on the terms of consolidation of the 911 dispatch services.”
Lohnes said even up to a few weeks ago the county was prepared to offer the city credit for the $900,000 upgrades.
But, the city said the county’s proposal would terminate the city’s oversight of its dispatch center, potentially compromising the quality of emergency services and eliminate the city’s ability to manage city tax dollars that pay for dispatch operations.
“Merging our 911 system with Clark County would have had a negative impact on current city dispatch personnel who are vital to the success of our emergency operation,” Heck said. “Remaining separate will also allow us to support each other as a backup if there is a system failure in either center.”
Lohnes said the county and the city had a joint agreement to combine, but the city’s last request was for joint management and that wasn’t happening.
“You can’t take turns of who’s in charge,” Lohnes said. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t share control of the operation like that.”
READ: Clark County to move 9-1-1 dispatchers
Lohnes also said the county was willing to change shift schedules to help reduce any burden city dispatchers who lost seniority would have faced.
Working together
Though the city will not be joining the county’s dispatch center, the two sides say they will continue to work with county law enforcement.
“We will continue to provide mutual support to our systems and use our partnerships to further the interests of the neighbors, friends and families in our community that we are so humbled to serve,” Heck said. “The city will continue to work toward a shared records system with the county, allowing data to be more accessible by public safety units as well as the community. The City will continue to discuss ways to combine and consolidate other services with the county to provide the most effective service delivery to our community.”
City and County law enforcement are also now using the same radios and can communicate on the beat more easily.
However, there are still concerns about the two entities not combining. City and county officials have noticed cases where a 9-1-1 caller is near the city-county line and gets the wrong dispatch center. The reason is the signal towers predicting where the caller is calling from isn’t always right. When a county dispatcher receives a call from someone in the city, they must transfer that person over to city dispatch. The same goes for city dispatchers who get a call from someone in the county.
And in an emergency, time is precious.
“If you ever been on the end of a 911 dispatcher seconds do matter,” Lohnes said. The combined dispatch center would have eliminated that issue, he said.
Heck told the Springfield News-Sun that while those incidents do happen, the city and county dispatch services already work together to get the caller to the right place as quick as possible.
“They have built such a rapport working together that happens fast,” Heck said. “As we continue to upgrade our information and software and equipment, it’s only going to get more seamless being able to communicate and talk effectively with each other.”
By the numbers:
$5 million — The cost of Clark County’s new dispatch center
$900,000 - Money spent by the city to upgrade 9-1-1 dispatch equipment this year
21- Full-time dispatchers serving the city of Springfield
Continuing coverage;
The Springfield News-Sun brings the best public safety coverage for Springfield and Clark County and has covered the negotiations between the city and county for the new dispatch center since the beginning.
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