Newton Aldermen are considering a proposal that would allow Newton County’s 911 call center to dispatch all police and fire calls for Newton residents.
In a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, Mayor Murray Weems introduced Brian Taylor, E911 director for Newton County, whom he had asked to speak to the Board of Aldermen.
“I’ve asked him to put together a package for dispatching for the city,” Weems said.
Newton County, Taylor said, just constructed a new dispatching system for the county’s emergency responders. Through that system, the county dispatches the Newton County Sheriff’s Department, Hickory and Duffee police departments, ambulance services and all fire departments throughout the county. Additionally, he said, calls for Newton and Union police department originally come to the county’s call center before being transferred to local dispatchers.
911 dispatching is expensive, Taylor said. While many municipalities are reducing the cost of the equipment and manpower needed to answer emergency calls by consolidating and outsourcing, Taylor said Newton is in a unique position. The county already takes the initial 911 call for the city before transferring the call to the local police dispatcher, so it would simply be removing an extra step.
“If we can’t come together as a county, eight to 10 years from now, if you dial 911, it’s going to Lauderdale County; it’s going to Scott County,” Taylor said.
In fact, he said, several years ago there were talks to have Lauderdale County take over all dispatching in Newton County.
“We’d be in trouble down the road,” Weems said.
Additionally, Weems added, allowing the county to handle dispatching would be a cost saver for Newton. Currently, he said, the City of Newton spends about $83,700 per year on dispatchers, $7,000 per year on licensing for the Mississippi Joint Information Center (MJIC), which allows police to run background checks and about $250 per year in supplies.
“That’s a total of $90,764,” he said.
When deciding on a cost for dispatching service, Taylor said he settled on $12 per person per year, which would be based off the census. He said he was also speaking to Union Board of Aldermen about joining the county and had given them the same rate. For Newton, that would come out to about $43,000 per year.
Roughly, it’d be about a $48,000 savings per year,” Weems said.
For that $43,000, Newton first responders would receive computer assisted dispatching, audio recording with a time stamp, which could be used for trials and the option of recording body camera footage with timestamps and GPS information.
“I know you’re looking at body cameras,” Taylor said. “That can be integrated into the system. We can make this as big or as small as we want to.”
Additionally, Taylor said, the county’s dispatching system is connected with a language translating service and a Text Telephone (TTY) machine, which can be used by hearing or speech impaired people.
“We don’t have that, do we?” Alderman Michael Hillie asked.
While the board agreed switching to the county’s dispatch system would be a benefit their town, they decided to wait until their December meeting before making any decisions. Making the dispatching change would eliminate Newton dispatchers’ positions, a move the board said they would not approach lightly.
“That’s a great system they have,” said Alderman Bob Bridges, “But we’ve got a lot do to.”
