Full council to vote on dispatchers

• City officials said the agreement saves $300,000, including $225,000 to $250,000 on salary/benefits.
• The city pays its eight police dispatchers $442,067 for salary and benefits.

NEWARK – The full City Council will vote on a proposed agreement with the Licking County Sheriff's Office and the Licking County 911 Center to move city police dispatching from the police station to the county's new facility.

Council's Service Committee voted 4-1 Monday night to send the proposed contract with the county on to the full council. Democrats Bill Cost and Jeremy Blake, and Republicans Ryan Bubb and Jeff Rath voted for the agreement, while Democrat Alex Rolletta opposed it.

The city would pay the county $515,000 annually to perform its police and fire dispatching duties, according to a negotiated agreement. The city already contracts with the county for its fire dispatch. The city administration said the agreement saves about $300,000, including between about $225,000 and $250,000 annually on salary and benefits.

Police Chief Barry Connell said he initially opposed the idea, but discovered the city could not afford any other option. The 911 Center uses Computer-Aided Dispatch, which the city does not.

"The CAD system is what the entire nation is going to and we're not there yet," Connell said. "We're behind the curve. CAD is something we should have done years ago."

The chief said it would cost at least $300,000 to $500,000 to upgrade the city's facility with CAD, but he called that purchase just a starting point. Additional upgrades and improvements would follow in the coming years, he said.

The pay raises for the entire Division of Police and the extra pay period in 2016 will cost an estimated $241,000 next year, Connell said.

Lewyenne Shumaker, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2963, questioned the city reaching an agreement with the county, when the county acknowledged it charged Newark for fire dispatch and did not charge any of the other 26 entities.

"The city paid $2.6 million to the county from 2006 to 2013," Shumaker said. "Just think what the city could have done with that. We could have paved roads, or retained employees we let go.

"We need to invest in our city and quit turning things over to the county. The city should collaborate with AFSCME to bring fire dispatchers back."

Fire Chief Pat Connor said he would not want fire dispatching to return to the city, because of the mutual aid nature of fire and emergency medical calls.

"We have to communicate and it's best to have dispatchers all under one roof," Connor said. "It would create a barrier (to communication). I'm very happy with what the county does and it's under the same management (as police dispatching).

"The equipment is very expensive. The price tag, if we brought it back here, would be astronomical."

Sean Grady, director of the Licking County 911 Center, said it will reduce its charge to Newark for fire dispatching from $300,000 to $115,000, because it plans to start charging the other communities that have not been charged previously.

Councilman Marc Guthrie, D-at large, questioned whether other communities will agree to start paying for fire dispatch.

"It seems to me we're really doing quite a bit of speculation here regarding what the future holds with this contract," Guthrie said. "I'm pretty amazed they'll start paying when many are in even worse condition than we are. I'd like to know where the money is coming from for the rest of those subdivisions."

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The city pays its eight police dispatchers $442,067 for salary and benefits and pays the county $300,000 to $320,000 annually for fire dispatching, totaling about $750,000 for police and fire dispatching.

If the council approves the agreement, city dispatchers could pursue the county dispatching jobs at the Licking County 911 Center or possibly try to bump another city employee and take that job.

The proposed two-year deal, which renews automatically every year after the initial term, increases the city’s cost if calls for law enforcement in Newark jump by more than 5 percent above the current volume of 42,000 annually. When call volume exceeds 44,100, the city will be charged an additional $12 per call.

The full council meets at 7 p.m. Sept. 8, then at 7 p.m. Sept. 21.

kmallett@newarkadvocate.com

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Twitter: @kmallett1958