City’s cost for 911 dispatch services goes up

By: 
Steve Lyon
The amount the city of Weiser is charged to cover the expense of operating the 911 emergency dispatch service is going up.
 The city’s portion of the costs to run the dispatch comes out of the Weiser Police Department budget. The county sheriff bills the city on a monthly basis for dispatch personnel salary costs. 
 City and WPD officials, commissioners and the sheriff recently met to discuss the increase in expenses and the agreement for dispatch services between the city and county.
 Weiser Mayor Diana Thomas said the police department did not budget for the increase in the current fiscal year. She said the additional expense could come to $26,000 more than what the city paid last year. 
 Later, county officials said the city’s additional dispatch salary costs passed on to the WPD and the city for the fiscal year will come to about $15,000.
 The sheriff’s department implemented a new salary schedule for patrol, detention and dispatch employees with wage increases, citing a need to be more competitive with surrounding counties and to improve retention. 
 The higher wages for dispatch employees resulted in the additional costs for the city’s share. The city is billed for half of the dispatch salaries based on actual hours worked. 
 More than half of the calls for service that come through dispatch are WPD calls, county officials said. The city pays about $100,000 annually for services.
 Sheriff Matt Thomas said his department should be able to cover the additional costs after the city’s budgeted amount for dispatch runs out. It was agreed that the city will make monthly payments until the WPD’s budget line item is spent, which is projected next summer, and the sheriff will cover the rest of the fiscal year out of his budget.
 The mayor said the city wanted to look at the agreement and asked if future increases could be capped so the city wouldn’t see a spike in costs. 
 She also asked if the county commissioners could give the city an estimate in writing of the anticipated dispatch costs when the county works on setting its budget every May.
 “We need to have something from your office,” she said.
 She said the current agreement between the city and county, which dates back to 1992 and precedes her time in office, leaves it “wide open” on potential increases in the dispatch costs billed to the city. She said it was a huge hit to the police department’s budget.
 “I would like to consider looking at a cap so we don’t get a huge increase in any one year,” the mayor said.
 Commissioner Nate Marvin said he was not in favor of a cap on what the city is billed for dispatch services. He said the county can’t control all of the expenses and the county’s costs continue to go up every year.
 Commissioner Tom Anderson said the county and city could make it work in the future so everyone is aware of what the estimated dispatch costs will be.
 On Monday, commissioner Kirk Chandler said the city and county will work to make the agreement satisfactory.

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