Today’s Eagle Tribune has a story on the potential for a regional dispatch center for Essex County. The story talks about a decision, due this month, on a state grant that would facilitate the building of a regional call center. Methuen is one of the communities that has signed on to this first phase of regional dispatch, along with twelve other communities. The Sheriff of Essex County, Frank Cousins, would be the central player in the regional effort, with his office serving as the administrative arm of the call center. The Globe has also written a story. From the Boston Globe:

The proposed Essex County center would serve a population of about 220,000, according to a funding request submitted to the state public safety agency last month. The center would consolidate more than 13 police and fire dispatch centers under one roof, on the third floor of a proposed new building to be added to the site of the Middleton House of Correction. It would be staffed with 35 full-time dispatchers, five shift supervisors, and five administrative personnel.

And of course you have the critics, who are opposed to any regional effort that would diminish local control. North Andover Chief Richard Stanley is one of those critics.

“I strongly urge – as do an awful lot of police leaders – that this type of program does not go forward,” said North Andover Police Chief Richard M. Stanley. “I am in favor of studying it, I am in favor of looking at it, but I want to be shown why it is something that is going to benefit the community.”

Stanley said that while the center might prove helpful to firefighters, he does not see the benefits for police. He said he would want to be assured that police would not “lose the personal touch with the residents.”

Stanley was also quoted in the Tribune:

Stanley said if the issue were merely one of cost savings, he would urge public officials to look somewhere else.

“No one has shown me yet that this is going to save money. Where do you draw the line between cost savings and people’s safety?”

Cost savings and “looking somewhere else” for them. It is a familiar refrain to mayors and managers.

From Methuen’s perspective we are waiting on hard numbers from the prospective regional entity before we make a firm committment. We will carefully analyze the prospective costs of labor, as well as the savings inherent in not having to locally upgrade very expensive equipment. If the numbers work Methuen will attempt to make the savings for our taxpayers. There are other great potentials in this area, including true interoperability between police and fire in all member communities, economies of scale, better communication between communities, and top flight training for call center operators. This proposal should, and hopefully will work.

As we move forward one area of concern is the question of collective bargaining agreements for the workforce associated with the regional call centers. Today’s cost savings can become tommorow’s problems if we are not clear on how those potential contracts will be determined, and what say member communities will have in making that determination.

Regional efforts such as this one will be in our future because of the inherent unsustainability of the existing municipal finance model. When costs exceed revenues the ship sinks. As we find ourselves waist deep in water “looking elswhere” for cost savings just is not going to cut it.

Read the Tribune story here.

Read the Globe story here.