Letter to Editor: 911 Dispatch

Tue, 03/14/2017 - 12:05pm — Diane Dyer

My name is Nancy Cardwell, and I am the Office Manager for the Butler County Ambulance Service and have been employed there since March 2005. At that time the ambulance service and dispatch was under the direction of the Butler County Fiscal Court. Since its existence, the dispatch center has always been supervised by the supervisor of the ambulance service and was housed in the courthouse. In 2007 the fiscal court created a taxing district to help subsidize the financial burden of the ambulance service.    So when the ambulance service became its own entity, the dispatch center went with it.
When dispatch became an Enhanced 911 center back in the 1990’s, (still under the fiscal court),   a 911 surcharge fee was placed on all landline phone lines. This money went to the state and was disbursed back to each PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) or dispatch or in our case, the fiscal court. A phone controller was leased from AT&T along with all the computers, monitors and other equipment needed to run a dispatch center properly. The average monthly lease amount was approximately $3500 with no promise of the equipment ever being permanent property of the fiscal court. The phone controller, which is the brains of 911, was installed in the bathroom of dispatch. You could literally sit on the toilet and lay your hand on the phone controller! Not a very good idea for a very expensive and crucial piece of equipment.
In 2007 when the ambulance service and dispatch became their own entity, our board looked at ways to cut costs and manage our monies more efficiently. We kept noticing the AT&T Pro-Club bill was $3500 a month. After some investigation, we noticed that we were paying for monitors and other computer equipment that we no longer had due to computers and monitors going bad through the years.   We contacted AT&T regarding that and were told that none of the equipment in dispatch belonged to us, that it was leased. After going through and inventorying all the equipment, we got the bill lowered by only a couple of hundred dollars.
We were told by AT&T that our phone controller had a life expectancy of 10 years. By this time it was already well past that by almost 7-8 years. As time wears on all equipment, things started wearing out and repairs would have to be made. We learned that the vendor for the phone controller was a company in Canada. We also learned that our phone controller was obsolete and parts were very hard to come by. When we needed repairs, the service men from AT&T would come and do the best they could with what they had to work with.
In 2008 the state mandated a geospatial audit for all PSAP’s. They wanted to make sure that each 911 call was mapping correctly. If the audit was not passed, Butler County stood to lose all of the 911 surcharge that was being collected. It would still be collected from each landline customer; however, the funds would be given to a PSAP in another county.   Butler County’s initial audit was held on September 9, 2008. 202 KAR 6:100 specifies the requirements of mapping software used in certified PSAP’s. Our dispatch did not meet the software requirements. In the field data testing of the audit, 20 random points were tested by collecting field GPS information and address information and the results were compared to the computers in dispatch to see if they matched. Passing criteria is 90% of the points tested shall meet the criteria. Butler County failed with 0%. The auditors assured us that we had the opportunity to try and correct this and they would schedule a re-audit at a later date. At that time the Butler County Ambulance Service hired Stantec Consulting Services, Inc. to assess our situation. It was decided that the best course of action was to re-address all of Butler County. The ambulance service then purchased a vehicle specifically for addressing.
Next, we met with a company called GeoConex, Inc. to see about upgrading all of the mapping and other equipment for our dispatch center. They are a company based in Knoxville, TN. They are the vendor for most of the counties in TN as well as several in KY. We contacted several of their clients and they had nothing but good things to say about them. They came up and set up all of our new mapping and computer aided dispatch equipment and trained each dispatcher and the addressing coordinator. They were here approximately 2 weeks. The ambulance service pays an annual support fee of approximately $11,000 for all upgrades, maintenance and tech support.
On March 27, 2012 the re-audit was conducted and I am happy to say Butler County passed 100%! However, we still had a 17-18 year old phone controller that was falling apart and getting harder and harder to find parts for and I might add that we were still paying $3000 a month for it and it would never be ours.
The technicians from GeoConex kept stressing that all the equipment should be in a climate controlled area. At that time we were still in the courthouse. For those of you who do not know, the courthouse is on 2 heating and cooling systems. The judge’s office, clerk’s office and the circuit clerk’s office is on the newer heating and cooling system. The treasurer, occupational tax, county attorney, PVA and sheriff offices as well as the jail and the old dispatch center is on the old part. Every time the season changes, the system has to be worked on and often takes days or even weeks for it to be repaired for the proper season. All the while the employees in those offices either freeze or burn up, depending on the season. I’ve seen it as hot as 85+ degrees in dispatch. Any IT person would tell you that is very hard on computer equipment. Instead of taking on the expense of running the dispatch center, it seems to me that the fiscal court’s money would be better spent on getting a new heating and cooling system for their own building.
Because the courthouse was not properly grounded, we had several lightning strikes to the phone controller as well. On two different occasions, I’ve seen several fire trucks sitting in the courthouse yard with drop cords running through the window of dispatch to keep the 911 equipment running because the power was out and the generator was not working. Again, not a very good idea for expensive and crucial equipment.
In December 2013 we bought a new phone controller from GeoConex. A few people have asked why we did not get a grant to purchase the phone controller. Board Chairman, Don Sullivan, Director, Brian McKinney and I, along with Daniel Yarnell, a representative from GeoConex, went to a grant workshop in Frankfort before we purchased the one we now have. The grant was specifically for PSAPs to help them purchase upgraded equipment. The only thing was in order to qualify for the grant, there were only 3-4 vendors that you could purchase from. GeoConex was not on that list. We took in all of the information from that workshop and presented to the rest of the board. After weighing all our options, we decided to go ahead and purchase the phone controller from GeoConex as GeoConex could not guarantee that the equipment that we had already purchased from them (mapping and computer-aided dispatch software) would be compatible to a phone controller from another vendor. That way everything we had would be supported by one company. We feel that was the best decision for our dispatch center. It has proved to be true.
Like I said earlier, we purchased the phone controller in December 2013. We set it up on monthly installments for a period of 5 years.   So when it is paid for, it is ours, no more leasing. We knew we were moving out of the courthouse soon, so we did not have it delivered until we moved so as not to have the cost of moving it twice. It has the capability to be upgraded any time. Since that purchase our monthly AT&T Pro-Club bill has been decreased to $1100 a month.
In April of 2014 the ambulance service and dispatch moved to our current home at 1290 Veterans Way. Our dispatch is top of the line. It is housed in a room completely made of steel. Our board wanted it to where if there was any type of disaster, dispatch would still be standing and still be functioning for all emergency services. Our new phone controller is in a room by itself that is completely climate controlled. We have alarms set up so if anything goes wrong, we know it immediately. GeoConex has a 24/7 tech support and they can remote in and fix it in a matter of minutes or seconds. We have a generator that runs on natural gas instead of electricity so if the power goes out, we are still functioning.
The purchase price of the phone controller was approximately $185.000. The ambulance service has already paid for 2 ½ years of the 5 year loan. Last fiscal year the fiscal court paid the monthly payment. Once again we have asked the fiscal court to pay for the remaining balance of the phone controller. We feel that it is only the right thing to do considering we provide all dispatch service for all county entities free of charge. If you ask any of the surrounding counties, you will find that the county helps fund their respective dispatch center. We’ve only asked that the fiscal court pay for the remaining payments of the phone controller.
Time and again we have asked members of the fiscal court to come to our facility, tour dispatch, and ask Don, Brian or me questions regarding the finances, personnel, or other questions they might have. We have asked they to come to our meetings as well. We have yet to see them there.
Our board consists of 5 people. They have businesses of their own and are very successful and financial minded men and women. They have provided for their families with their business for years and are very conscientious of the way monies are spent.
In closing, a lot of talk has been said that fiscal court wants to “make dispatch better”. I think the question that begs to be asked, is who has “made dispatch better”?