A law passed in 2012 required Butler County to cut its dispatch centers from six to four by 2016 and then to three in 2018 or risk losing state funding totaling $716,484. The dispatch centers in Monroe, Trenton and at Miami University are secondary dispatch centers and are not counted toward the total.
Butler County hit the 2016 target after the city of Oxford volunteered to shut down its dispatch center and let the Butler County Sheriff’s Office start dispatching its calls in January — about 5,000 calls annually.
The largest dispatch center aside from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office is Middletown, which answered 51,627 emergency calls last year. It is important for the city to maintain its own call center because its dispatchers are familiar with the community and “understand the culture of Middletown,” David VanArsdale, the city’s public safety director, said.
“We have explored consolidating centers — both through outsourcing or bringing on additional public safety agencies. However at this time there have been no options that made sense both operationally and financially…,” he said. “As the largest municipality with a dispatch center in both Butler and Warren counties, we feel strongly that maintaining a local dispatch center allows us to provide the best service to the community.”
When Hamilton turned its dispatching over to the county in 2014, officials estimated they would save about $500,000 a year despite paying the sheriff's office about $900,000 for the service. Oxford estimated a $50,000 savings because they kept a number of dispatch center employees and expanded their duties. The city once had a budget just under $1 million and paid the sheriff's office $336,000 this year for dispatch services.
Oxford Police Chief John Jones said the transition to having the county handle dispatch has gone “reasonably well” but has not been without its challenges. He said going from a small staff that was very community knowledgeable to being part of a much bigger operation, has brought about some novel adjustments. The city and Oxford Twp. used to have their own radio channel, not anymore.
“Now they share a radio channel with deputies and other police agencies in the county. While this helps us with inter-operability and getting help from outside agencies quickly, it has been an adjustment for us listening to a much larger amount of radio traffic and sorting out what is pertinent to our area,” he said. “During high volume activity times, we also will compete with more officers for radio air time.”
Fairfield and West Chester Twp., like Middletown, say they are not eager to give up control over their dispatching. Township Administrator Judi Boyko said they did an internal cost/benefits study, which was a little difficult because they don’t know exactly how much the county will charge them.
“I don’t believe from an operational standpoint the staff has changed its perspective about the most productive and effective way to dispatch West Chester’s safety services,” she said. “We have a local police department, local fire department and there is benefit for West Chester to maintain a local emergency dispatch presence.”
West Chester Twp. and Fairfied are nearly even in number of calls coming in at 29,050 and 27,709 respectively last year.
“We’re going to maintain our own dispatch operation,” Fairfield Police Chief Mike Dickey said. “We think with the number of calls we’ve got coming in here that it’s going to be an undue burden on somebody else to take our 911 calls. But if that’s what they decide to do, that’s what they decide to do.”
The ultimate decision will be made by the Butler County 911 Planning Committee, which comprises of officials countywide. Butler County Commissioner Don Dixon sits on that board and also has the responsibility for the county and thus the sheriff’s budget. He said they have plans in the works to expand the dispatch center when the time comes to add another jurisdiction. He said the jurisdictions will all have input on the consolidation decision and it won’t be based on just the dispatch numbers.
“Make no mistake,” he said, “we’re going there, one way or the other we’re going there.”
The decision comes down to money, he said.
“We’re not going to get funding if we don’t comply with the requirements, and we will comply,” Dixon said.
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