States Eye Consolidations of Dispatch Centers
Some states are looking to consolidate their emergency dispatch centers for cost savings as they migrate to the next generation 911 systems. But some local officials urged states to back off the plan. Concerns regarding additional cost, longer response time and quality of service were cited at a Maine Public Utility Commission hearing Wednesday. The state PUC proposed to reduce the current 26 public safety answering points to 15-17.
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Other states are already implementing consolidations. Indiana law requires all counties to consolidate their dispatch centers by Dec. 31, 2014. The 2008 law allows each county up to two public safety answering points despite concerns from police officials over impact on public safety communications. The Crawford County Board of Commissioners in Michigan recently approved the first phase of its 911 consolidation project. Local officials in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin are exploring their consolidation options.
Any further forced reduction in the number of PSAPs will affect service quality and consolidations beyond the current level should only occur on a voluntary basis, said Michael Smith, president of Maine Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA). He noted issues from the last round of forced consolidations in 2003: “While we reduced the total number of PSAPs by 22, we only reduced the actual number of Dispatch agencies by five."
The Maine legislature asked the PUC to look into the best configuration of PSAPs last year and a study commissioned by the agency said “while the mandated 2003 PSAP consolidation was well intentioned, the result has been an emergency communications system … that is more complex and fragmented than existed prior to the PSAP reduction.” The identified deficiency will only be further compounded if there are more forced consolidations, Smith said. But the Main Chapter of the National Emergency Number Association isn’t “entirely opposed to further consolidations” as long as they're done on the local level and all factions of emergency communication system are addressed, he said.
Several communities worried that they won’t have a PSAP adjacent to their communities and that PSAP staff at large, regional centers aren’t familiar with local conditions, Maine’s public advocate Richard Davies said in an interview. The commission is likely to revisit and modify the proposal before it submits it to legislators in November, he said. The legislature is expected to convene in January. Several state representatives, including Sheryl Briggs (D), Jarrod Crockett (R), Sharon Treat (D) and Paul Gilbert (D), oppose closure of local PSAPs, citing potential issues related to cost and quality of service.
The proposed $1 per person 911 surcharge is fair and reasonable, said Amy Fowler with Maine County Commissioners Association. But the group is concerned that only three years of funding is proposed. PSAPs that will be absorbing other existing PSAPs will likely have to expand with both additional equipment and additional personnel, she said. The additional expense won’t go away after 2013 so ongoing financial support is necessary and should be financed from the 911 surcharge, she said.
Yet Maine NENA is concerned about the validity of the 911 surcharge in light of the fact that the state has used dedicated funds on at least three occasions to help offset the deficiencies in the General Fund, Smith said. More than seven million dollars has been shifted from the dedicated 911 surcharge account for a variety of reasons, leaving the fund balance at levels that may not be large enough to make the conversion to NextGen 911 for all PSAPs in the state, he said. “We encourage the legislature to discontinue the sweep of the 911 funds for reasons other than they were intended: 911 for all residents and visitors in the State of Maine,” he said.
The reduction of PSAPs may result in cost savings to the state E911 system as it looks toward next generation systems and perhaps also to the communities that consolidate both PSAP and dispatch functions into a regional full service communications center, the Maine PUC said. The commission cited expected improvements, including a reduction or elimination of the transfer of 911 calls between PSAPs and dispatch-only sites which improves response times and lowers the potential for human or technology errors, allows quicker call processing and dispatch times, offers virtually instantaneous communications between call takers, law enforcement, fire and EMS dispatchers enabled by sharing of physical space, the commission said.
The reduction of PSAPs would reduce cost of the installation and maintenance of the new NextGen 911 system, said Cliff Wells, director of Maine’s Public Safety Department. But he acknowledged that agencies on either side of the consolidation process may incur additional costs -- some ongoing, some one-time.