The sheriff’s office plans to charge the Butler County jurisdictions that run their police departments and use the dispatch center for the service next year. Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said the department plans to charge Fairfield ($219,638), Oxford ($34,651) and Ross ($75,780) townships, the villages of New Miami ($47,542) and Seven Mile ($5,764) and MetroParks ($6,999) for police dispatching in 2021.
Liberty Twp. pays the sheriff’s office around $3 million a year to have their own dedicated sheriff’s outpost and dispatch services are included. Hanover Twp. also has a contract with the sheriff. Hamilton and Oxford have their own police departments but began paying for the service several years ago and people asked why every department in Butler County wasn’t being charged.
Talks began with Fairfield Twp. a couple years ago because calls were mounting. The total bill for the places that use their own police is estimated at $1.9 million, based on a total of 126,209 calls. Hamilton pays the largest bill at $1.15 million.
Fairfield, Middletown, Monroe, Trenton and West Chester Twp. have their own dispatch centers.
The commissioners did not comment at the meeting, Commissioner Cindy Carpenter, who was absent from the meeting, told the Journal-News she completely understands the jurisdictions’ position and she hope she and her fellow commissioners can help.
“We have a couple of options, the first one would be to ask the sheriff if he would forfeit that charge. The second one would be to grant money to the townships to cover the charge for the 911 system,” Carpenter said. “It’s just a bad time for the townships to be hit with unexpected operational costs.”
Ross Twp. Police Chief Burt Roberts told the Journal-News he expected to collect just over $1 million in revenues to cover around $914,000 in expenses next year. The township’s $75,780 bill is based on 4,165 calls in 2019.
Roberts told the Journal-News he understands why the township is being charged because he was billed in other jurisdictions where he served. It is a fairness issue.
“I don’t have a problem paying if you say I need to pay then I’ll pay,” Roberts said. “I understand that’s the cost of doing business. But I don’t understand how you pick and choose what entities you want to charge.”
The sheriff’s office provides police and dispatch services for the bulk of the county’s small townships and villages. Dwyer said those jurisdictions don’t pay for dispatch because the sheriff is dispatching his own deputies.
“Anytime sheriff’s personnel are dispatched to a call that is free,” Dwyer said. “If for some reason my officers are in Ross Twp. and stumble across a robbery, there will be no charge for that event. If we’re the primary officer on a call for whatever reason, we have no intention of charging for that.”
Commissioners Don Dixon and T.C. Rogers told the Journal-News they need to meet with the sheriff to hash this issue out. Dixon said they understand the townships’ plight and “in there somewhere in the middle I think lies a compromise.”
“Somebody has to pay for it, just because the cost hasn’t been passed on previously doesn’t mean we continue to do that,” Dixon said. “We’re struggling with our budget just like they struggle with their budgets.”
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