“I was shocked at how pieced together it really is,” West Chester Trustee Ann Becker said of the current system. “If we didn’t have a strong IT department, we would have a problem.”
While the system is “functioning,” she said the township “can do better.”
“If we’re going to be one of the best townships in America, this system does need to be updated,” she said, referencing the title bestowed upon West Chester by Money Magazine in 2017 as one of the best place to live in the United States.
Cost estimates for a new software system are about $3 million, but trustees won’t know the exact price until the eight-month consulting project is complete. The current system was purchased in 1999 for $2.8 million.
The $168,363 consulting contract went to Deltawrx. Welch said five companies responded to a request for proposals, and the highest came in at more than $200,000. The other three bids were $139,535, $76,000 and $41,295.
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Dennis Dick, operations manager for the township’s communications center, said the dispatching system and associated software is not just about answering 911 calls and sending out first responders.
The software also involves on-board computers in police vehicles, a records system and more, he said. The consultants will be doing ride-alongs with first responders to make sure they are getting a product that meets their needs, according to Dick.
“In essence you have a whole suite of software…,” he said. “Any information that (first responders) need in the field is critical to their operations. So that’s why we very specifically wanted a consultant that demonstrated that they will spend that time and get that input from the users… All these other aspects of the software affect the daily operations of a police officer on the street and a firefighter on the street.”
One thing the consultant is not being asked to do is explore consolidation with the Butler County sheriff’s dispatch center. A law passed by the state legislature in 2012 called for a gradual reduction of dispatch centers, with the final number at three per county by 2018. Counties who don’t risk losing half their wireless 911 and Next Generation 911 state funding — to Butler County that meant about $360,000.
In the past six years, Hamilton — for cost saving reasons — turned its dispatching over to the sheriff, and Oxford gave up its so the county could meet one of the state’s earlier deadlines. There are still primary dispatch centers, in addition to the county’s, in West Chester, Fairfield and Middletown. There are secondary dispatch centers in Monroe, Trenton and Miami University that don’t count toward the law’s total.
Captain Matt Franke, who serves as the county’s communications section commander, said a state attorney general’s opinion took the penalty for not reducing the number of primary Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) to three off the table — for now.
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“The attorney general’s opinion says this means you can fund no more than three PSAPs,” Franke said. “So, since we don’t fund more than three PSAPs in a calendar year, we are in compliance with state law even though we have four primary PSAPs.”
When Hamilton transferred its dispatching to the county, officials there estimated they could save about $500,000 a year by closing their dispatch center, despite paying the sheriff’s office about $900,000 for the service. Butler County Sheriff’s Chief Tony Dwyer said it is premature to discuss whether a merger with West Chester is feasible because there haven’t been any discussions.
“If you’re talking about mergers you can make about anything happen, the question is the devil is in the details and what are we trying accomplish,” he said. “Are we trying to accomplish, like in the day there was a statutory requirement to reduce things, that’s one thing you’re trying to accomplish. Then there is an actual economic issue, are you trying to save money, are you trying to be more proficient, so there’s a lot of individual issues that effect mergers.”
And according to the trustees there won’t be merger talks.
“I think however it has evolved, West Chester has developed a PSAP to be envied,” Welch said. “Whatever cost-savings there might be in folding this into somebody else just doesn’t make sense from the standpoint of expectations of West Chester residents and business owners.”
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